Mayor's Corner: Stewardship Of Your Tax Dollars

The fall season presents us with a time to begin looking forward to the next year and continue planning for the future. At the City of Lakewood, fall means budget season and another opportunity to align community services, needs, and priorities with our finite public resources. As always, when working with our departmental directors and finance team to develop Lakewood’s annual budget, financial accountability and wise stewardship of your tax dollars serve as our north star in Lakewood City Hall.

Our 2025 budget draft continues to be a balancing act, working to maintain our city’s reputation for high-quality public services for residents while keeping an eye on the potential for key capital investments. Our operations budget is where most of Lakewood’s resources will always remain dedicated – for services like fire, police, and public works – but our capital budget again features a breadth of important investments, both larger and modest.

While we don’t have space to go through the entire budget here, a few highlights from the recommended capital budget include:                

• Winterhurst: the City will continue revitalizing this key sports and recreation asset for our community with a $3.6M project to renovate locker rooms, update the bleachers, as well as other improvements. We were fortunate to receive $750,000 of these dollars from the State of Ohio, and appreciate State Representative Skindell and State Senator Antonio’s advocacy to secure these dollars.
• Parks: Our ongoing work to maintain and upgrade our recreation options continues at Cove, Edwards, Merl Bunts, and Niagara Parks, which are all budgeted for 2025 or will be carried over and completed from 2024.
• Public Safety: Fire Stations 1 and 3 will both see investments, and both the Fire Department and Police Department will see continued investment in fleet vehicles, as well as radio and camera investments
• Walkability and Bikeability: the City will continue to invest in bikeway signage as well as speed and traffic calming projects across Lakewood and another $150,000 will be invested in ADA improvements (sidewalks, curb ramps, etc.).
• Environmental Sustainability: the City will continue to invest in electric vehicle charging stations and successfully obtained NOPEC grants and tax credits to support this investment.

The largest capital investment for 2025 will continue to be the City’s ongoing expense in addressing our aging sewer infrastructure and meeting EPA requirements regarding stormwater runoff and treatment. In 2025, we have over $37M budgeted toward these projects, but thankfully during COVID-19, the City of Lakewood was able to secure $47M in federal ARPA funds. We have strategically dedicated the lion’s share of these dollars to majorly defraying these project costs to limit the impact on the utility bills of our Lakewood water users. None of us enjoy spending money on sewers, but using this large amount of one-time federal dollars wisely places Lakewood in a much better position moving forward.

My thanks once again to Lakewood City Council for their partnership in our ongoing dialogue to set the 2025 budget. I also want to express my pleasure at working with our new Finance Director, Renee Mahoney, on her first budget season here in Lakewood. While Director Mahoney is a veteran of many budget processes in other venues, a switch to a new city can be a challenge, but I have been impressed with her ability to seamlessly step in and run Lakewood’s budget process smoothly.

I want to close by also commending Director Mahoney and her finance team for continuing the City of Lakewood’s streak of earning the prestigious Ohio Auditor of State Award with Distinction. This is the fifth year in a row that Lakewood has met the rigorous standards for this award, which demands everything from a strict adherence to accounting principles and avoiding material deficiencies in reporting to having no ethics referrals, no financial concerns, and meeting obligations for public meetings and public records standards. (Annually, less than 5% of the 6,000 government entities audited by the State of Ohio make the cut).

I appreciate the effort it takes to achieve this award from the State Auditor – it is an external validation of our culture of fiscal stewardship and transparency at Lakewood City Hall. It also makes our city even more attractive when we need to finance projects, offering another proof point to lenders that the City of Lakewood’s financial health is strong. We aim to have yet another strong financial showing in 2025 and beyond with the adoption of this latest budget and the continuation of our tradition of fiscal excellence and Stewardship for the people of Lakewood.