Increases in parks, police funding: Mayor John Ewing Jr. speaks on 2027 Omaha city budget proposal

Omaha Mayor John Ewing Jr. released his 2027 budget proposal Tuesday, with increases to police and parks funds. It's his first time overseeing the full budget process.

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Increases in parks, police funding: Ewing speaks on 2027 Omaha city budget proposal

OMAHA, Neb. —

Omaha Mayor John Ewing Jr. is presenting his 2027 budget to the City Council on Tuesday afternoon.

It’s Ewing’s second budget proposal, but it was his first time overseeing the entire budget process. His first budget proposal was just weeks after being sworn in as mayor. He said that “absolutely” means he was able to incorporate more of his vision.

“That’s why you see the commitment to parks,” he told KETV in a Tuesday morning briefing. “That’s why you see some of the additional staffing with the library and other things to make sure that we can provide a level of service to the people of this community.”

The budget is subject to City Council approval. A public hearing is set for the Aug. 11 City Council meeting.

Police

The Omaha Police Department should become fully staffed in 2027 after years of facing a staffing shortage, said Ewing, a former deputy police chief.

Currently, the department is 71 sworn officers short of the 906 budgeted for, according to the city.

Ewing is proposing a nearly 8% increase in the police general fund, including seven additional nonsworn positions and sworn wage increases of 6.4%.

“Applications are up significantly with the increase in pay that we’ve done,” Ewing said. “The goal would be to have at least a class of 50 in January, which puts us very close to full strength, and then working in July to see how many additional staff we need because of retirements to actually get to our authorized strength of 906 sworn personnel.”

Parks

The Omaha Parks Department was a major focus of Ewing’s. He is proposing a nearly 20% increase to the parks general fund.

The proposed increase calls for 14 new positions for maintenance staff, an assistant director and a project manager.

A study done for the city found Omaha invests less in its parks compared with peer cities, KETV Investigates reported recently.

The city has been without a parks director for a year. Last month, a candidate the city expected to hire dropped out at the last moment because of personal reasons, the city said.

Property taxes

Ewing is proposing no change to the city’s property tax levy. Still, the city expects a 4.3% increase in revenue from property taxes due to an increase in property valuation.

Ewing opted to make no change to the levy in both of his first two budgets. The levy has not been increased since 2011. Former Mayor Jean Stothert decreased the levy in five of her 12 years as mayor, including in her final two budgets.

The city receives about 21% of Omaha residents’ property tax. Most of the tax revenue goes to the school district.

Library

Ewing is proposing increasing the Omaha Public Library’s collections budget by 8%.

The mayor said it will help “reduce the time that individuals have to wait” for popular books and other materials. He said the current average wait is 35 days. The city aims to reduce that to 20 days.

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