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Last October, as the 2026 fiscal year budget was being assembled by the Stoney administration, then-Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Lincoln Saunders gave a presentation to City Council that outlined a rather dire financial situation while arguing against 8th District Councilwoman Reva Trammell’s proposal to cut the real estate tax rate by four cents.
Saunders told Council the FY26 budget was facing a $27 million deficit for Fiscal Year 2026 and by 2030, he warned that deficit would rise to $149 million. The presentation showed that spending would increase by an average of almost 6% per year but revenue will grow by an average of about 3%. You don’t need a calculator or a math degree to figure out that is a problem.
Last week, Interim CAO Sabrina Joy-Hogg gave an updated version of the presentation that showed if the city’s real estate tax rate remains at $1.20 per $100 of assessed value — the city will face a shortfall of $319 million by 2030 — more than double what Saunders presented just six months ago. At the same meeting, both Joy-Hogg and Budget Director Meghan Brown told Council, “we're just living above our means.”
This is usually when alarm bells should go off that spending is vastly exceeding revenue and someone might want to check their belt. Even though the city’s general fund budget grew by 65% between 2017-2024 (from $542 million to $885 million, with well over half of that coming from real estate taxes), the city is facing a budgetary cliff — but that is not stopping the Avula administration and the leftover officials from Stoney’s tenure working for the new mayor to pick up the spending where the former mayor left off. Which is why the proposed raises for some top city officials who saw
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