LEXINGTON, Ky. — Mayor Linda Gorton on Tuesday announced her proposed budget for the year. Distributing money into many areas within the community.
What You Need To Know
- Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton announced her proposed budget of $460 million
- The budget touches on multiple concerns within the community
- Mayor is working to invest in first responders and public safety
- Gorton said she believes public safety is the foundation of the community
The $460 million budget Gorton pitched for her city touches on a host of concerns raised by community members.
“It addresses a lot of pent up needs that we have had because of not only the pandemic, but our financial situation during the pandemic when the economy plummeted,” Gorton said.
Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton said the emphasis of this budget is on public safety.
“We’re trying to give our public safety partners—police, fire, corrections—the tools that are needed to do their jobs. And I’m a firm believer that if we don’t have a safe community, the rest doesn’t matter,” Gorton said.
In Gorton’s proposed budget, she allocates $1.2 million to install a new fire station alerting system, and over $11 million to modernize equipment for both fire and police.
New equipment Lexington Fire Chief Jason Wells said that would go to good use.
“Unfortunately, the station’s alerting system that we have used for many years is becoming outdated,” he said. “We’re actually buying parts, you know, kind of on the secondhand market trying to keep the system running.”
It’s an investment, Wells said, that has the potential to save more lives.
“So this investment in our infrastructure is going to allow us to be more effective, more efficient and respond more quickly to the emergencies that the residents and visitors of Lexington have,” Wells said.
The proposal is just a start, and Gorton said these investments are the foundation of Lexington.
“If we don’t have what we consider safe neighborhoods, we are not going to feel comfortable in parks or we won’t want to go out and visit art museums or whatever,” she said. “Public safety is the number one thing for a great community.”
Besides public safety, the Mayor has also distributed the proposal within areas of traffic and housing concerns and improving basic need services.
The council members will have a few weeks to discuss the money distributions within their districts with a second reading in June.