Richmond City Council members raised sharp questions Monday during the first in-depth discussion of Mayor Danny Avula’s proposed budget for the 2026 fiscal year, challenging both spending priorities and potential cost increases for residents.

The budget work session featured a presentation by Interim Chief Administrative Officer Sabrina Joy-Hogg, just days after Avula publicly outlined his proposal. Much of the conversation focused on the financial impact on the public.

While Avula promised his budget wouldn’t raise property taxes, the proposal came with planned rate increases for gas, water, stormwater and wastewater services meant to maintain and upgrade the city’s aging infrastructure.

“We are a very old city,” said Joy-Hogg of the increases, stressing that they weren’t due to the water crisis but part of an annual process. “We have to take care of our infrastructure.”

But council members Kenya Gibson, (3rd District), and Sarah Abubaker, (4th District), expressed concern about the burden on city residents already struggling with rising costs.

“People are breaking under the cost of living in the city,” Abubaker said. “It is not on individuals to sustain this budget. It can’t be.”

The city’s planned expenditures also were concerns for Abubaker and Reva Trammell, 8th District, in particular planned salary increases for City Hall employees.

“When you’ve got employees making $200,000, $300,000, should they be getting at this time the 3%?” Trammell said.

Joy-Hogg, like Avula during his presentation, cited the challenges the city faces in generating revenue as key to their budget choices. This includes the large amount of tax-exempt properties in Richmond, inflation and possible funding cuts on the federal level.

Richmond is also set to freeze its real estate assessments in 2026 in order to align the assessment and budget cycle calendars. The process will leave the city without an increase in a revenue stream that accounts for about 76% of its general fund, according to Joy-Hogg.

“To get through FY 2027 with very little projected incremental revenue, we should be putting away money now,” Joy-Hogg said.

These challenges, however, only made the raises, including one for Avula from about $131,000 to $175,000, and other specific expenditures more questionable for City Council. Council members also flagged concerns about limited time to review the budget documents, as well as issues related to community investment, service redundancies and vacant positions.

Despite the tough questioning, city officials appeared open to changes. Avula opened the session by acknowledging the inclusion of unrelated policy items in the proposed budget and said he welcomed council input.

“Just know that however you all want to approach that, if you want to pull some of those items out, I’m more than supportive of that,” Avula said. “We’ll continue to work out our processes and figure out our rhythms over the next four years in terms of how we do this.”

The second of four budget work sessions is scheduled for Monday, April 14.