Columbus City Council President Shannon Hardin is calling for the city to take austerity measures and accusing Mayor Andrew Ginther’s administration of “mismanagement” of the city’s budget.
Hardin made the remarks at a June 18 City Council hearing on the city’s first quarter financial review, which projected a $15 million deficit in the city’s $1.26-billion 2026 budget. The biggest deficits are projected in the Department of Public Safety, which has already spent the majority of its overtime budget for the entire year. The city has failed to reign in its police and fire overtime budget for years due to staffing shortfalls, according to their unions.
While city administration officials said they have implemented a committee to work on budget issues, they declined to offer any specifics for how they plan to address the financial concerns raised by Hardin until they can complete a report later this summer. The budget fight comes as Hardin eyes challenging fellow Democrat Ginther in the 2027 mayoral election.
Top leaders from Ginther’s cabinet defended their approach, saying Columbus is facing the same economic pressures that other cities are facing with expenses outpacing revenue growth, but Columbus’ administration is proactively strengthening how it budgets. Ginther’s chief of staff, Elon Simms, said this conversation should not turn into a “blame exercise.”
Hardin asked Ginther’s administration to work with City Council or it would legislate to balance the budget and protect the city’s triple A bond rating. Hardin said nothing is off the table and solutions could mean across the board department cuts, a stricter hiring freeze, a pause on new contracts, reducing the fall capital budget or forgoing a fall bond sale.
“We are halfway through the year, still asking for the plan we’ve needed since last year,” Hardin said. “Whatever measures have to be taken now will be twice as painful, twice as disruptive, because they’ll have half as much time to take effect.”
Hardin said the city shouldn’t be in this position because it has enviable revenue growth from income taxes. Columbus City Auditor Jacquelin Lewis said during the hearing that the city is on track to meet revenue expectations for 2026, about 2.5% over 2025’s revenue. Lewis, who was appointed after Auditor Megan Kilgore resigned at the end of April, kept her comments primarily focused on the numbers.
It’s not unusual for the city’s Q1 report to project a deficit and for the city to make it up over the year.
“The difference is that this year, all the usual tools we typically rely on to tighten the belt have already been exhausted,” Hardin said. “On the revenue side: revenue is coming in near target, but usually by this point, we’re way over target. So if we come in under, we’ll have millions to make up. “
Chris Long, Ginther’s director of finance, said the administration has a road map for the budget. He told the City Council that the city will have a report on its plan to close the budget gaps by the end of July, after the second quarter projections are clearer.
Long said the department cannot offer up cost saving measures at this time because the department doesn’t yet know the magnitude of the issue. Long did say that lay-offs are not being discussed and cautioned against not adopting a capital budget this fall.
Simms and Long presented how Ginther’s administration has formed a Strategic Finance Committee, the culmination of two years of working to improve budgeting in the city. When the council was weighing the 2026 budget at the beginning of the year, Hardin called for a new taskforce but Ginther’s administration has rejected that, and formalized an existing committee.
Councilmember Melissa Green said she’s frustrated because the June 18 hearing was the first she heard there’s a plan to address the budget. Simms said this was never a secret and the administration has briefed Hardin and Councilmember Nick Bankston, chair of the council’s Finance & Governance Committee, about plans.
The majority of the nation’s largest cities are grappling with budget deficits as costs rise, including the cost of staff health insurance, and federal pandemic funding from the American Rescue Plan Act ends.
Police and fire overtime at center of budget concerns
Public safety spending, which makes up about 70% of Columbus’ budget, was hotly contested during the council hearing. Some council members have accused Ginther’s administration of underbudgeting for police and fire overtime.
The city budgeted for police and fire to spend $28 million on overtime in 2026, an aggressive 45% cut from 2025. But as of mid June, the Division of Police had spent 75% of their overtime budget and the Division of Fire had spent 98%. A few days before the hearing, Columbus opened a new fire station on the city’s northeast side that will stretch the division’s staffing further.
Simms and Interim Fire Chief David Baugh rejected the narrative that Fire Station 36 will be staffed by overtime. Green pushed back, saying it’s effectively the same if the station adds to overtime elsewhere in the division.
The backdrop of the debate about fire and police spending is that the two unions secured large raises in their last contract renegotiations, 16% for police and 18.5% for fire over three-year contracts. Council approved those contracts with little to no opposition.
Columbus looks to trim employee raises
The city is heading back to the bargaining table with the police and fire unions this year and in early 2027, with its largest union, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 1632. Long has said the city will be asking the unions to accept closer to 2% raises annually to balance the budget.
The city will not give a raise to its 1,140 non-union employees this year, after they got a 4.5% raise in 2025. The last time those non-union employees went without a raise was 2020.
Ahead of the administration making a plan by the end of July, some solutions were offered at the council hearing.
AFSCME Local 1632 President Will Harmon testified at the council hearing that the city should stop spending on contracts for work city employees could do.
Green suggested that the city should reevaluate if it has too many top and middle management positions making six-figure salaries.
After the hearing, Ginther released this statement to The Dispatch:
“I agree with Council President Hardin that our great city is in an enviable position, and I appreciate council members and my staff for taking the time to work together so we can ensure families across our communities have a local government that remains focused on their priorities.”
Government and politics reporter Jordan Laird can be reached at jlaird@dispatch.com. Follow her on X, Instagram and Bluesky at @LairdWrites.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Columbus council president slams mayor over budget ‘mismanagement,’ vows cuts
Reporting by Jordan Laird, Columbus Dispatch / The Columbus Dispatch
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By Jordan Laird, Columbus Dispatch | USA TODAY Network
