The Hamilton County Commission Thursday unanimously passed its $1.3 billion spending plan for 2024.
The plan includes a roughly $396 million operating budget and a 14% reserve.
County Administrator Jeff Auletto told commissioners the county faced a $40 million gap at the beginning of the budgeting process this year. The county bridged that by reducing the budget requests many departments turned in.
"That's no small thing to close a $40 million gap," Commission Vice President Denise Driehaus. "That's larger than usual."
As in recent years, about 70% of that operating funding is devoted to public safety, including county courts, the Hamilton County Sherriff's Office — which will receive about $118 million from the general fund — and the Hamilton County Justice Center, which will receive $22.3 million for improvements.
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The county is continuing programs it began during the pandemic with American Rescue Plan Act dollars. Among those are $45.6 million for housing initiatives, including the production and preservation of affordable housing, mortgage assistance programs and other efforts.
"The new initiatives that we started due to ARPA, I was just hoping we'd be able to sustain those, and we have," Commissioner Stephanie Summerow Dumas said.
The county will also use $20.4 million toward a replacement for the controversial Cincinnati Police gun range. That site, built in the 1940s, has drawn criticism in recent years due to its proximity to houses in Lincoln Heights.
"That's a huge, huge deal that we have in the budget," Commission President Alicia Reece said. "Seventy-plus years, and we're finally going to get it done."
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The county will also give employees a 3% cost of living increase, plus high-performing employees will be eligible for a 0.5% increase and a one-time 1% bonus.
The county is also launching a few new initiatives to serve veterans after questions about the performance of the Hamilton County Veterans Service Commission. A recent news report found the county isn't serving as many veterans or spending as much money as nearby counties, despite having the most veterans in the region at 42,000. One of those initiatives is an effort to provide free Metro rides to veterans going to doctor's appointments. Commissioners budgeted $20,000 for that program, but Driehaus says that could change as the county determines the demand for the service.
"We've never done this before, so we don't know... how many veterans will take advantage of the program, so that's the best guess," she said.
Not everything about the budget process this year was smooth sailing. There was a lengthy debate between Reece and her fellow commissioners about funding for the upkeep of the recently completed Black Music Walk of Fame, a project Reece championed.
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Reece pushed for a funding plan that could increase as hotel tax receipts and parking revenue did; both Dumas and Driehaus supported about $1 million a year fund pulled from the hotel tax and parking revenues.
Reece, who was concerned that the latter plan could be changed under a different commission, ended up voting with her fellow commissioners on the full budget. During the meeting, Driehaus stressed she believed the plan is also a permanent maintenance fund for the Black Music Walk of Fame.
You can find documents related to the county's 2024 budget here.