The Birmingham City Council today approved Mayor Randall Woodfin’s 2024 city budget, ending a budget season sprinkled with brief moments of drama, including threats of rejection, followed by silent, behind the scenes negotiations.

The unanimous vote today puts in place major spending priorities, including pay raises for city employees, funding for youth programs and street paving, for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

Here are some highlights of $554 million budget which goes into effect July 1:

• More than $16 million supports public transportation with an increase to the Birmingham Jefferson County Transit Authority (BJCTA) for services including the Birmingham Xpress bus rapid transit system and the city’s Birmingham On Demand shared mobility service.
• $14.5 million for street resurfacing throughout the city, a $2 million increase from FY 2023
• $6 million for youth programs. These include allocations to Birmingham Promise scholarship program, mental health services support in Birmingham City Schools, financial literacy and conflict resolution curriculums in schools, a safe haven program in Birmingham Parks and Recreation, the Kids and Jobs program and juvenile justice reentry services
• $2 million for weed removal/grass cutting throughout the city
• $1 million for demolition of blighted building, structures
• $500,000 to increase the number of staff for code enforcement, a late council demand
• Employee benefits, including a five percent cost of living adjustment for firefighters and police officers, funding for merit pay for eligible city employees and longevity pay for eligible employees.

Today’s unanimous approval was threatened earlier when some council members, led by Councilwoman Valerie Abbott, assailed the lack of funding for city services such as public works and code enforcement.

Councilmembers Darrell O’Quinn and Hunter Williams joined Abbott in threatening to vote no today, a rare move of dissension by the council on a major proposal from Woodfin.

Abbott, the city’s longest-serving councilor, spoke harshly of the mayor’s budget during a recent committee meeting, saying the proposed spending plan lacked funding for what she called key priorities that impact residents.

“I just thought, I don’t even want to approve this budget because it’s not addressing the things that we complained about over and over and over and over,” Abbott said during a committee meeting last week, her voice rising and her hand slapping the conference table. “We just keep complaining and nobody listens. Maybe you’re ticked off. Well I’m ticked off because I’m going to come to the end of my time at City Hall and we still haven’t accomplished anything.”

The public showdown was averted when Woodfin compromised by allocating an additional $500,000 to hire more code enforcement officers.

“He did a great job of making sure he found a solution,” Williams told AL.com this afternoon. “Collectively, we’re happy that we presented a real issue that we felt was broken and needed to be fixed and the mayor went to his team and found a solution. The interaction between this council and this mayor shows exactly how government is supposed to work and how government is supposed to resolve issues for its citizens when it feels bureaucracy is too slow.”

Woodfin thanked the council following today’s vote and called the budget the result of collective and individual conversations with the group.

“We have things to do,” Woodfin said. “We need to move as fast as possible to continue to pave streets, we need to move as fast as possible to continue to push on the things related to code enforcement and all the things that are related to neighborhood revitalization.”

The full budget can be seen at www.birminghamal.gov/2024budget.