Jackson council weighs public works cut, shaky revenue forecast and department consolidation in budget talks
JACKSON — Jackson's public works director asked the City Council to reverse a proposed budget cut, a council member overseeing the budget said the city will fall well short of the revenue it projected for the current year, and another member floated consolidating four city offices into one department, as the council took up FY2027 budget deliberations on Sept. 3.
Public Works Director Lorenzo Anderson told the council the department's proposed FY2027 budget of $14.25 million was too low and asked instead for $16.858 million. “I'm asking that don't cut budget for public works to 14 million but give us 16,858,000,” Anderson said.
Anderson told council members the city has roughly 2,300 work orders pending, a backlog he said compounds each year it goes unaddressed. He noted that the department's approved FY2026 budget had been $22 million, making the proposed FY2027 figure a significant reduction from the prior year's funding level.
The department requests came as council members measured new funding asks against the FY2026 budget's figures — figures a council member responsible for the FY2027 process said the city would not reach. Councilman Parkinson, identified in meeting records as overseeing the budget, said the FY2026 budget rested on projected revenues of nearly $136 million.
“I don't think we're going to get anywhere close to that which is why I've tried previously to work to amend the budget... the FY26 figures are just not the most accurate forecast,” Parkinson said. Earlier in the same meeting, Councilman Stokes attributed to Parkinson a characterization of the $136 million projection as “illusory.”
Separately, a council member proposed folding several city offices together as part of the restructuring talks. “One of the specific consolidations of departments I've wrote down here as something to consider would be to consolidate the IT department, communications, HR, and constituent services into one department,” the councilman told colleagues, adding that he had not yet calculated potential savings. The council took up a related motion on department consolidation during the same session.