Last week, the 2025 Cleveland budget hearings kicked off as Mayor Justin Bibb introduced his plans to spend just north of $805 million from the city’s general fund. That money will be spent across city departments such as aging, housing and, of course, policing. Refund Cleveland wants to know: What do residents think?
This year, Mayor Bibb’s budget book – also known as the Mayor’s Estimate – is an intimidating 442 pages long. Earlier this week, Signal Cleveland published a breakdown of how he plans to spend the money. For example, the department that oversees policing and emergency services is set to take home the lion’s share: $409 million.
The city’s housing and health departments are expected to receive between $16 million and $18 million, respectively.
“This is a lot of money that impacts a lot of people,” Will Skora, a co-founder of Open Cleveland, told Signal Cleveland. A lot of people assume the city’s budget funds schools or libraries, but it doesn’t, he said.
Budget hearings are scheduled through Feb. 27, but it’s possible they could wrap up sooner. Cleveland Documenters created this guide to help you follow along.
Skora, who captains Open Cleveland, helped launch the online tool ahead of the 2021 city budget. Open Cleveland is a volunteer-led effort co-founded by Skora – a web developer and mapmaker – and local librarian Anastasia Diamond Ortiz.
While the tool wasn’t Skora’s idea, he said the concept initially came from Black Lives Matter Cleveland and PB CLE.
Since 2021, the team of residents behind the tool update it every year in hopes of making the budget easier for people to understand.
“Lots of times, people have misconceptions about what can be done to improve city services,” said Skora, an Old Brooklyn resident. “We want to lower the barriers to help people interact with our government.”
So, you want to tell Cleveland how to spend its money?
First, take a look at Refund Cleveland’s online tool. Instead of looking at each department, the tool breaks the budget into six broad categories:
The tool automatically sets each bucket to “zero” and allows you to increase the amount of money spent on each one. Just below each bucket, you can also see the city’s planned allocation. For example, policing and corrections – not including EMS or fire – are set to get about 33% of the pie.
Keep in mind that you will need to spend all of the money before you can submit your budget. If you don’t, you won’t be able to submit the form.
Once you’ve finalized your budget, hit the “submit” button and you will be prompted to enter your email address and ward number. Don’t know your ward number? Refund Cleveland added a way to look that up, too.
After you fill out and submit the form, the next page provides a template to write to your council member. Refund Cleveland will email you a link to your budget with a letter template you can customize to email to your council person.
Cleveland 2025 budget stories
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