DAVE BIGGERS FOR MAYOR

A Budget for People, Not Politics

Total Budget: $1.13 billion
(Same as Louisville Metro’s current approved budget)

The Difference: Not how much we spend. HOW we spend it.

THE 30-SECOND PITCH

Old way: Traditional policing after crime happens.
Our way: Police IN neighborhoods, prevention BEFORE crime starts.

Old way: Modest raises, bloated bureaucracy.
Our way: Real raises (17.8% for employees with no contract), lean administration.

Old way: Top-down decisions.
Our way: YOU help decide neighborhood priorities.

Same total cost. Revolutionary results.

FOUR BIG TRANSFORMATIONS

???? SAFER COMMUNITIES THROUGH PREVENTION

63 MINI POLICE SUBSTATIONS – One in your neighborhood

• Officers walking YOUR streets, not just driving through
• 24/7 presence in every zip code
• Community meeting spaces
• Build trust, prevent crime before it happens
• Rolling 4-year deployment – 12 stations Year 1, all 63 by Year 4
• Evidence: 50+ cities show 20-30% crime reduction

18 COMMUNITY WELLNESS CENTERS – Real healthcare in your neighborhood

• Primary care, mental health, addiction treatment – all in one place
• Stop sending police to every mental health crisis
• Address the ROOT CAUSES of crime and disorder
• Phased over 3 years – 6 centers per year
• Cost: $45M fully implemented
• Saves: $80M in reduced ER visits, better health outcomes

ENHANCED YOUTH PROGRAMS – $32.5 Million

• After-school programs during peak crime hours (3-7pm)
• Summer jobs for teens: you get paid and you get experience
• Early childhood education, library youth programs and school support with JCPS
• Evidence: Youth employment reduces crime by 35%

FIRE PREVENTION CENTERS – $2.2 Million

• Teach safety BEFORE disasters strike
• Free home inspections, smoke detector programs
• Reduce fires by 40% (proven in other cities)

Paid for inside Louisville Fire, which stays flat at its adopted $85,520,300: half of Fire’s unscheduled overtime, $1.37M, starts the program in Year 1, and the rest of the $2.2M is added only as Fire’s own overtime-and-staffing review shows money that can move without taking an engine out of service.

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???? BETTER PAY FOR BETTER SERVICE

Employee Compensation Investment: $27.4 Million Year 1

Louisville Metro employees deserve competitive pay.

THE DIFFERENCE:

• Current: 5% raise for some employees
• Our Plan: Raises of 11%, 3% and 3% for non-union employees; union raises through their contracts

WHY IT MATTERS:
✓ Attract top talent to serve Louisville
✓ Reduce turnover and training costs
✓ Better employee morale = better public service
✓ Competitive with private sector and surrounding communities

HOW WE PAY FOR IT:

The $27.4M is held as one raise pool until a pay plan sets each department’s share: $19.2M of it is money Metro already spends (the platform’s administration and efficiency savings), and $8.2M comes from revenue enhancements.

No new taxes. No deficit spending. Just valuing our people.

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????️ COMMUNITY INVESTMENT OVER BUREAUCRACY

Same total, every dollar placed. The plan spends exactly Metro’s adopted FY2026-27 operating budget, $1,125,931,500. A published reallocation ledger shows every department’s adopted budget beside its budget under this plan, and the two columns add to the same total, to the dollar.

• Dave’s five priorities come first, funded in full: raises for Metro’s non-union employees, Public Safety & Community Policing, the $15M participatory budget, Education & Youth Development, and Neighborhood Development. Together they ask $214.71M a year of Metro money. $206.51M of it is money Metro already spends; the other $8.2M of the raises comes from revenue enhancements (license compliance, delinquency collection, parking and non-resident fees).
• Most of it is paid inside the departments that do the work, by changing what they already spend money on. Money moves between departments only from sources the platform names or Dave has chosen: the smaller jail, the administration and duplication savings, the efficiency savings, $1M from juvenile detention, and Thrive by Five’s Metro money.
• Also funded in full: Senior Services, Disability Rights & Accessibility, Arts, Culture & Tourism, and Technology & Innovation.
• Partly funded, and growing: Criminal Justice Reform, Environmental Justice & Climate Action, and Economic Development & Jobs start with what their departments can carry, and grow with outside money and with jail savings once those savings are proven.
• Phased: Public Health & Wellness and Food Systems & Urban Agriculture launch on their own non-Metro funding. Metro adds its share as the jail savings prove out.
• The named gap: about $20M of Health & Human Services programmes, mainly crisis stabilization centres, clinician-and-peer mobile crisis units and addiction treatment, has no Metro funding yet. The crisis teams that pair a social worker with an officer are funded, inside LMPD.
• Police stay flat. LMPD’s plan is $260.4M because the $8M police-oversight programme moves to the independent Office of Inspector General, so oversight sits outside the department it oversees. That is not a police cut. The flat figure is before the raises officers win in their own contract.
• The back-office claim is about $21M, not the $39M first stated: that is what can actually be placed, department by department.
• Outside the operating budget: Affordable Housing asks no Metro operating money (abatement reform, fees and federal funds), and Infrastructure’s $35M is a shift inside the separate capital budget.
• The biggest bet is the jail. The $36.5M only appears if bail reform and diversion shrink the jail population, so it is the first number the administration will report on.

Same budget. Better priorities.

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????️ YOUR VOICE, YOUR PRIORITIES

Democratic Governance: $15 Million

PARTICIPATORY BUDGETING

• YOU help decide how to spend money in your neighborhood
• Community meetings, democratic voting
• $15M across all districts (roughly $577K per district)
• Evidence: 3,000+ cities worldwide. Higher trust. Better outcomes.

TRANSPARENCY & ACCOUNTABILITY

• Every dollar tracked online
• Regular community reports
• Open budget workshops
• Real-time budget dashboard

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THE NUMBERS ADD UP

CATEGORY	ADOPTED FY2026-27	OUR PLAN	% OF BUDGET (PLAN)
Public Safety	$528,287,900	$492,545,450	43.7%
Community Investment	$295,474,500	$323,746,150	28.8%
Infrastructure & Services	$151,112,400	$139,112,400	12.4%
Democratic Governance	$52,028,000	$73,588,000	6.5%
Support Services (includes the $19.2M employee raise pool, held in OMB until a pay plan splits it by department)	$99,028,700	$96,939,500	8.6%
TOTAL	$1,125,931,500	$1,125,931,500	100%

Public Safety’s departments carry less because the jail shrinks and police oversight moves to the Inspector General (in Democratic Governance); the 18 wellness centres, a public-safety priority, are paid through Public Health (in Community Investment). Democratic Governance grows because the $15M participatory budget runs through Metro Council’s 26 districts and police oversight moves to the Inspector General.

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WHY THIS WORKS: THE EVIDENCE

Mini Police Substations:

• Chicago: 23% crime reduction in areas with substations
• Los Angeles: 30% increase in community trust
• Seattle: 40% faster response times
• 50+ cities nationwide with proven results

Community Wellness Centers:

• San Antonio: $80M saved in ER costs annually
• Denver: 35% reduction in police mental health calls
• Portland: 40% decrease in public intoxication arrests
• Every $1 invested saves $5.60 in emergency services

Youth Employment Programs:

• Philadelphia: 20-30% crime reduction among participants
• Chicago: 45% increase in high school graduation
• Boston: 50% reduction in teen arrests
• Evidence from 100+ cities over 30 years

Participatory Budgeting:

• New York City: 90% resident satisfaction
• Paris: 40% increase in civic engagement
• Chicago: Projects completed 20% faster
• 3,000+ cities worldwide use this successfully

Competitive Employee Pay:

• Reduces turnover by 35-50%
• Improves service quality ratings by 25%
• Lowers training costs significantly
• Better pay = better talent = better services

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HOW WE PAY FOR IT: THE MATH

Money that moves between departments (every dollar from a named source; which source pays for which priority is shown for clarity, because the money is pooled):

From	Amount	Named source	Goes to
Department of Corrections	$26,742,450	A smaller jail: bail reform and diversion (the jail shrinks by $36,500,000; $9,757,550 of that stays in Corrections for pretrial services and diversion)	Wellness centres $20,512,450 · participatory budget $6,230,000
Office of Management & Budget	$14,000,000	Administration waste cut	Employee raise pool $12,500,000 · participatory budget $1,500,000
Facilities & Fleet Management	$12,000,000	Efficiency: procurement, technology, operations	Employee raise pool $6,700,000 · participatory budget $5,300,000
Louisville Metro Police Department	$8,000,000	Police oversight moved out so it is independent (paid from LMPD’s own patrol and overtime savings)	Office of Inspector General $8,000,000
Metro Technology Services	$7,289,200	Bureaucratic duplication eliminated	Neighborhood Development $6,759,200 · participatory budget $530,000
Office of Strategic Initiatives	$1,997,100	Thrive by Five’s Metro money (its state-required share stays)	School-based childcare through the library $1,997,100
Louisville Free Public Library	$1,688,700	Room freed by Thrive by Five’s money	Disability rights in Social Services $1,688,700
Youth Transitional Services	$1,000,000	Juvenile detention	Youth programmes through the library $1,000,000
TOTAL	$72,717,450

A further $205.4M is re-pointed inside the departments that deliver each policy and programme. Police are the largest example: LMPD moves 378 officers from patrol into 63 substations, with $64.26M of their existing pay (about $170,000 each before overtime), cuts half of unscheduled overtime and leaves $20.7M of patrol posts unfilled as officers leave, which frees $96.01M; $88.01M of it pays for substations and co-responders inside LMPD and $8M funds independent oversight.

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FISCAL RESPONSIBILITY

✅ Same total budget as current approved budget ($1.13 billion)
✅ No new taxes required
✅ No deficit spending
✅ Maintains city reserves at required levels
✅ Honors all union contracts (raises are additional)
✅ No employee layoffs – just reassignments and better pay
✅ Phased implementation – sustainable over 4 years

Every promise. Every program. Every dollar.

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PHASED IMPLEMENTATION

Year 1 (FY2027-28):

• 12 mini substations operational
• 6 community wellness centers open
• First participatory budgeting cycle
• Employee raises implemented immediately
• Enhanced youth summer jobs program: paid jobs for teens

Year 2 (FY2028-29):

• 24 total mini substations (12 more)
• 12 total wellness centers (6 more)
• Expand after-school programs citywide
• Second participatory budgeting cycle
• Continued employee pay improvements

Year 3 (FY2029-30):

• 36 total mini substations (12 more)
• 18 total wellness centers (6 more – COMPLETE)
• Fire prevention centers open in fire stations
• Third participatory budgeting cycle

Year 4 (FY2030-31):

• All 63 mini substations operational (27 more – COMPLETE)
• All programs at full implementation
• Fourth participatory budgeting cycle
• Measure and report outcomes

By 2029: Louisville leads the nation in community-focused governance.

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REAL PEOPLE, REAL IMPACT

For Families:

• Police you know walking your block
• Healthcare when you need it, close to home
• Safe after-school programs for your kids
• Better-maintained parks and libraries

For Employees:

• Competitive pay (17.8% raises for non-union employees)
• Better benefits
• More respect for public service
• Clear career advancement paths

For Neighborhoods:

• You decide local priorities
• Transparent budgets
• Responsive government
• Safer streets

For Louisville:

• Lower crime rates
• Better health outcomes
• Stronger communities

OUR VISION FOR LOUISVILLE

Same Total Budget. Completely Different Priorities.

Community-driven. Not top-down.
Preventive. Not reactive.
Efficient. Not bureaucratic.

17.8% raises for employees with no contract. Not 5%.
Neighborhood policing. Not distant precincts.
Your voice matters. Not just elected officials decide.

It’s not about spending more. It’s about spending smarter.

GET INVOLVED

Website: rundaverun.org
Email: info@rundaverun.org
Social: @davebiggers

Volunteer: We need you to knock doors, make calls, spread the word.
Donate: Every dollar helps us compete with big money politics.
Vote: Election Day 2026 – Let’s transform Louisville together.

DAVE BIGGERS FOR MAYOR
Better Louisville. Better Future.

Version 3.0 | Updated October 2025 | www.rundaverun.org