💰 Nashville’s Metro budget, explained

🏛️ Metro Council Considers Substitute Budget

Metro Council will consider and vote on the Substitute Budget Ordinance tomorrow night, which could replace the mayor’s proposed budget. What’s in it, and how does this whole thing work? Councilmember Delishia Porterfield joins the City Cast Nashville podcast to tell us everything we need to know. [🎧 City Cast Nashville]

📰 Efforts Continue To Identify People Arrested by ICE

It’s been a month since Immigration and Customs Enforcement, in conjunction with the Tennessee Highway Patrol, took 196 allegedly undocumented immigrants from Nashville streets and bused them out of state. Despite efforts from Metro officials and numerous organizations, ICE has yet to release the names of those taken, and where they’ve been relocated. [Nashville Banner]

• The ReMIX Tennessee organizer Brenda Pérez recounts the day it started [🎧 City Cast Nashville]
• Nashville’s Mass attendance has plummeted amid ICE threats. Under the Trump administration, churches no longer have federal protections from immigration enforcement. [WPLN]

🎥 Nashville’s Burgeoning Film Infrastructure

While in the past, film production in Nashville has been far from consistent, that’s beginning to change thanks to local actress Nicole Kidman advocating for films to be shot here, the expansion of Ryan Murphy’s “9-1-1” franchise with “9-1-1: Nashville,” and an influx of sound stages and production studios. [Nashville Scene]

🧑‍⚖️ Kilmar Abrego Garcia Pleads Not Guilty

On Friday, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongly deported to El Salvador by the Trump administration, pleaded not guilty to charges of trafficking in a Nashville federal courthouse. Hundreds protested his detention outside. [Tennessee Lookout]

Nashville’s fiscal year 2026 budget goes into effect on July 1, 2025. Mayor Freddie O’Connell submitted his budget proposal for council approval in May, and since then, councilmembers have had public hearings to consider budget items to add. Budget and Finance Committee Chair Delishia Porterfield submitted her substitute budget based on these hearings on June 12. The council must vote and agree on a substitute budget by June 30, or the mayor’s budget will automatically go into effect.

Councilmembers can propose amendments to the substitute budget on Tuesday, June 17, so if you have opinions about the budget, let your councilmember know! Here’s your guide to what’s in the budget, and the proposed substitutions.

💰 What’s in the Mayor’s Proposed Budget?

• Metro Nashville Public Schools make up 37.2% of the total budget, 13% greater than the 2025 budget
• $15 million for a nurse in every school
• $3.2 million for the Metro Nashville Police Department to add 23 new school resource officers
• $45 million to address affordable housing
• $49.6 million more for first responders
• Transit improvements to increase WeGo bus frequency, fund a new low-income fare program, and expand WeGo Access for riders with disabilities
• Funds for health and wellness programs like Nashville Strong Babies, HIV/STI prevention and treatment, vaccinations, mobile health programs, mental health support, and nighttime codes inspectors
• Creation of a standalone Department of Waste Services

💵 What’s in the Substitute Budget?

• $8.2 million for a 2% across-the-board cost of living pay increase for Metro employees, 1% higher than in the mayor’s proposal
• $175,000 to expand food assistance programming through social services
• $75,000 to support court-appointed special advocates through the Juvenile Court
• $150,000 to fund Nashville After Zone Alliance juvenile services via the library
• $250,000 to support maternal health and doula programming via the Health Department's Strong Babies initiative
• $75,000 for the Oasis Center's emergency youth shelters via the Office of Homeless Services
• $100,000 to explore additional public-private housing partnerships
• See the rest

To fund these additional budget items, Porterfield has made several reallocations without reducing city or department services, and without increasing the overall budget or taxes. On the City Cast Nashville podcast, she explained that the “lion’s share” [about $5 million] came from adjustments to fringe benefits of vacant positions. She also reallocated money from a property loss account and contingency utility accounts.