Birmingham Residents Voice Concerns About City’s Proposed $554 Million FY25 Budget  

By Keisa Sharpe | For The Birmingham Times Nearly two dozen Birmingham residents showed up at City Hall Monday evening for the City Council budget hearings to voice some concerns and ask for budget expenditures to help with various improvements in their neighborhoods. The city’s fiscal year begins July 1. Darlene Tarrance, a Roosevelt Village resident, said she was concerned about “people coming to our neighborhood to dump things on empty lots … ” Tarrance said she left a note in a suggestion box outside the council chambers for city leaders to consider installing cameras at dump sites in local neighborhoods “to catch those offenders. Others asked city leaders to address various items like improving the condition of local roadways, providing consistent trash pickup to known dumping sites/empty lots, and adding more safety measures and police presence for communities with high crime, including West End and Inglenook. Birmingham Council President Darrell O’Quinn said the spending plan for next year is identical to this year’s budget. City officials are using the $554 million 2024 budget as a stand-in for the coming year to allow staff to catch up on work lost due to what the city called a computer network disruption,...