24 Jun Local Budgets? Loaded with Opportunity!

Has anyone else felt themselves climbing a series of steep learning curves over the past few months? How a novel coronavirus is transmitted to humans. How to homeschool a child. How deep and destructive systemic racism is. Our brains have been challenged to take in, process, and take action on a lot of important information.

For me, some of that new information includes how important local government and local policy decisions are – including the local budget. Admittedly, I was surprised to see what all is included in Louisville’s city budget, for example, and am still learning all the departments and services funded by the budget, along with the process for approving it. From public health to public safety to public works and beyond, our local budget touches so many aspects of our lives.

As someone who works on child abuse prevention and family engagement, I know that budget holds many opportunities for prevention and support—whether it’s funding for more family programs at the library, improving our parks so kids of all ages have somewhere to play, increased services at the health department, mental health outreach, or a number of other positive investments our city could make. We need a local budget that prioritizes helping families stay happy, healthy, and hopeful.

So keep challenging your brain by learning more about your local budget, who represents you locally, and when budget decisions are made so you can ask your elected officials to invest in what makes our community stronger.