- The Omaha City Council votes Tuesday on Mayor John Ewing's nearly $1.7B proposed 2027 budget
- The budget would pay for addition city staff at the Omaha Police Department, the parks department and across the library system
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
OMAHA, Neb. (KMTV) – The Omaha City Council is scheduled to vote Tuesday on Mayor John Ewing's proposed 2027 budget of nearly $1.7 billion.
The budget would help the police force reach its full capacity of 906 officers and increase staffing at the Parks Department and Library System. Ewing said increasing staff was a priority when he unveiled the budget last month.
The vote comes one week after the City Council voted to put 2 bond projects on the ballot this fall — to build a youth sports complex in West Omaha and a new OFD-OPD headquarters in Central Omaha.
Councilmembers are also bringing their own proposals to the budget, including increasing funding for the Aksaraben Curling Club, Youth Emergency Services and Madonna Rehabilitation Hospitals by decreasing funding elsewhere. All of those changes require public hearings and votes by councilmembers, which will happen at Tuesday's meeting. It starts at 2 p.m. at the Civic Center.
One of the proposals would decrease funding to One Omaha, a non-profit that works to help neighbors improve their neighborhoods.
The mayor's proposed budget includes more than $3.5 million for community service programs — from the summer jobs program to neighborhood grants to local non-profits. That includes $40,000 proposed for One Omaha, which did not receive funding from the budget in 2025 or 2026.
Councilmember LaVonya Goodwin is requesting that $40,000 be reallocated to Food Bank of the Heartland.
One Omaha Executive Director Kimara Snipes said she is working to find a path forward for both organizations.
"We have one organization and another organization, both really providing valuable resources to the community and so for me it was just like, 'OK, I gotta find a way to reach out to our city council members and just talk about how do we support both,'" Snipes said.
Snipes said the funding would be used to provide more resources to neighbors, and that One Omaha board members are reaching out to city councilmembers with the goal of keeping that funding.
Goodwin declined to comment when reached for this story, saying she will speak at the council meeting Tuesday.
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