Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson, in one of his final major acts before leaving office after three terms, unveiled a city budget proposal that keeps overall revenue essentially flat while setting aside money for a pay raise for city workers and additional funding for public safety.
The $416.9 million spending plan, released Wednesday, covers the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1. At first glance, the budget appears to show revenue jumping by roughly 9.5 percent, but city officials say that increase is largely a result of how the budget has been restructured to reflect revenue from different sources, rather than an actual influx of new money. Overall, officials say revenue is expected to remain about the same as the current fiscal year.
Stimpson, who is not seeking re-election, struck a reflective tone in his budget message to the city.
“I couldn’t help but reflect on what we have been able to accomplish working together over the last 12 years,” he wrote. “Across the city, we continue to see visible progress on projects that will shape Mobile for decades to come.”
Among those projects: a new downtown arena under construction to replace the demolished Mobile Civic Center, along with continued progress on the Three Mile Creek Greenway Trail.
“At the same time, the city is also making generational investments into affordable housing, reducing blight, improving public facilities and expanding the essential city services that make Mobile a great place to live, work, and raise a family,” Stimpson wrote, adding that the investments are being made possible by a growing local economy as businesses and industries continue choosing to invest in Mobile.
The Mobile City Council is expected to take up the spending plan in September, after this week’s municipal election. The council’s Finance Committee will review the proposal on Sept. 2, with a public hearing to follow the next week and a final vote expected by Sept. 16.
On the personnel side, the budget includes a 2.5 percent merit pay raise for city employees, part of more than $40 million in new spending tied to personnel, public safety, infrastructure and economic development.
Public safety is a major focus of the proposal. Stimpson wants to fund 24 additional positions in the Mobile Police Department and nine new positions in Mobile Fire-Rescue. The plan also includes $1.6 million for new police equipment, $1.4 million to expand the city’s security camera network, and an additional $300,000 for the Gulf Coast Technology Center, which provides digital forensic support to area law enforcement agencies.
For the first time, the city would also help cover the cost of electronic monitoring for criminal defendants released on bond, as Mobile shifts responsibility for that program away from private companies and toward the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office.
The budget additionally proposes nearly $6 million for a newly created Stormwater Management Division to handle repairs and maintenance of the city’s drainage systems, along with an extra $1 million in state gas tax funding directed toward road repairs.
Another $10 million is set aside for designing and building a new animal shelter. City officials recently abandoned an earlier plan to build the facility on Montlimar Drive, opting instead to reconfigure a former broadcast studio along the Interstate 65 Service Road.
The budget also calls for maintaining a $64 million operating reserve while continuing to pay down debt that Stimpson inherited when he took office in 2013. City officials say Mobile should begin seeing relief from those debt obligations in 2027, with the debt fully paid off by 2030 — a timeline they say will make it easier to finance the new downtown arena going forward.
“In summary, the Fiscal Year 2026 budget reflects both discipline and ambition,” Stimpson wrote in closing his budget message. “It sustains essential services, makes important new investments in public safety and infrastructure, and maintains the strong reserves that protect the city’s financial health while providing flexibility for the years ahead.”