The Jackson City Council adopted a budget Friday that is nearly 20% smaller than last year’s after confronting the reality that the city lacks the money to fully fund some public safety services.
The council voted 5-1 in favor of the $337-million budget for the budget year that begins Oct. 1, including a $113 million general fund that will mostly be spent on services such as police, firefighting and public works.
Jacskon City Councilmember Montyne “Tina” Clay of Ward 2 during a council meeting at City Hall, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayThe budget includes no tax increases. The final day of the council’s deliberations featured intense discussion about funding for firefighting
“We are scraping every couch cushion for every extra nickel for public safety,” said Pieter Teeuwissen, the city’s chief administrative officer.
Ward 2 Councilmember Tina Clay, who described herself as a “lone ranger,” was the sole no vote. Clay said she disagreed with the council’s attempts to fund the public safety departments at the expense of other initiatives such as planning and development.
“I know you budgeted $113 million, but in my eyes it’s zero because it’s not covering what we need to make us functional,” she said.
The council allocated roughly $33 million to the Jackson Police Department and about $25 million to the Jackson Fire Department. Public works, which is responsible for infrastructure, was allotted $19 million.
The remainder of the budget is dedicated for specific uses – the council cannot repurpose the dollars. Under Jackson’s form of government, the mayor’s administration writes a budget and the council approves it.
When this year’s budget talks began, some council members believed the new spending plan would represent steep cuts to city services, particularly public works, said Kevin Parkinson, the Ward 7 Councilmember and finance committee chairman.
While that’s true on paper, Parkinson said the city’s chief administrative officer and the finance department drafted the proposed budget by what departments actually spent. In part because the administration did not use such a process last year, Parkinson said the fiscal year 2026 budget was not an accurate estimate of the city’s revenue and expenditures.
Jackson City Councilmember Kevin Parkinson listens during a council meeting at City Hall in Jackson on Tuesday, April 21, 2026. Credit: Eric Shelton/Mississippi Today“We are passing a genuinely balanced budget,” he told Mississippi Today. “We really are a more efficient government. We’re getting more done with less.”
The final day of budget hearings came down to whether the city’s tightened belt could be loosened for the fire department. Chief RaSean Thomas had asked the council for an additional $1.5 million to hire 25 more officers – an effort to improve the city’s fire rating that was downgraded earlier this summer due to lower-than-ideal staffing.
After taking a brief break to talk to the finance department, Teeuwissen found $750,000 by giving up a position in his office and shifting money between multiple accounts. This will allow Thomas to hire 12 more officers.
In prior years, Ward 3 Councilmember Kenneth Stokes said the council would have simply used the city’s reserves — consisting of unassigned general funds — to hire more firefighters.
But that move wouldn’t be possible this year, Teeuwissen told the council. Due to a lack of up-to-date audits, the city doesn’t know how much it currently has in reserves. Teeuwissen suspected the number might be alarmingly low.
A call to the city’s auditor confirmed this concern. In 2023, the city had $29 million in unassigned reserves, Jillian Caldwell, the chief financial officer, told the council. In 2024, the auditor estimated the city had about $7 million.
“It may be down to zero,” Clay said. Her solution for hiring more firefighters – to reduce the police budget and rely more on Capitol Police to patrol downtown Jackson – garnered no support.
The deadline to adopt the budget is Sept. 15. Mayor John Horhn did not attend the final day of budget talks. Ward 4 Council Member Brian Grizzell was also absent.
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