CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – City Council held a public hearing on what to do with the city’s $10 million FY26 budget surplus, but only former Mayor Nikayah Walker addressed the issue.

Chris Cullinan, the city’s director of finance, said there are four elements of the recommended or required appropriations.

The largest is unrestricted, which totals $8,502,177.67, or roughly 3.4% of the FY25 budget. It was recommended that amount be allotted to the city’s CIP contingency account.

Cullinan said there is $24,490.54 in restricted funds for courthouse maintenance and construction that will carry over to the new fiscal year.

“In the grants fund, there is $10,442.28,” Cullinan said. “These are unspent state fire grant funds to be used for eligible expenses. And finally, the last piece is the school’s gain-sharing amount returned to the city of $1,464,765, the recommendation being that these be deposited in the city’s debt service fund to help offset debt service costs related to school projects.”

Former mayor Nikayah Walker was the only person who spoke during the public hearing.

“I advocate for you all to consider using funds like this and funds that will come up in the future and maybe even consider some of the policy changes that we considered before, whether the reserves needed to be at the level that they are currently at and bond ratings and stuff like that to make sure that your most vulnerable citizens, that black citizens, as all the members of the slave auction block group just talked about, people who built this city, the descendants of, are taken care of. I also know that you are probably still advised to not use one-time funding for things that will take, you know, multiple years of funding.”

Mayor Jaundiego Wade responded to Walker’s comment.

“I do still think explicitly earmarking some portion of it for land acquisition for affordable housing would be important just to ensure that we kind of institutionalize that practice within the city,” he said.