TOLEDO, Ohio —
Toledo City Council unanimously approved the 2024 city budget on Wednesday for $970 million, $53 million more than last year, with most of the budget dedicated to public safety.
"Public safety is number one," city councilperson George Sarantou said. "That's almost 80% of our budget, just for police and fire."
This year's budget will fund a new police class of 45 police officers and a new fire class of 30 firefighters. Other priorities for funding were roads, water and city parks.
"Repaving residential streets is very important, and this year we're budgeting $28.5 million to make sure residential streets are brought up to speed and are functioning much better than they are," Sarantou said.
Some areas of the budget saw decreases, but city councilwoman Carrie Hartman said this is from having fewer American Rescue Plan funds available.
"It's hard to compare last year's budget to this year's budget because we had so many ARPA funds to use last year and the year before," Hartman said.
One of the amendments made to the budget from the proposal in November was to keep the White Box Grant program. The program helps small businesses get grants to help fix signs outside.
"That's important because a lot of small businesses that want to open up or that exist really would like to get some new signage and you know it really is expensive," Sarantou said.
The budget could see some alterations throughout the year though.
"Hopefully we made the best decisions for Toledoans this year," Hartman said. "There's always time for mid-year budget adjustments in June or July, but I think we did a good job and it's a good budget based on our revenues."