Mayor Jane Castor Presents 2022 Budget With Focus On Strengthening Tampa's Foundation

TAMPA, FL — On Thursday, Tampa Mayor Jane Castor presented a budget for Fiscal Year 2022 focused on the theme of Strengthening Tampa's Foundation and using new technology to help Tampa residents more easily see how their money is being spent on city services.

"A strong foundation - be it infrastructure, housing, fiscal strength, opportunity, or safety - is what enables a community like ours to be resilient in the face of challenges and ambitious when it comes to improving the quality of life for every neighborhood," Castor said of the budget that keeps the tax rate level while significantly investing in critical needs like affordable housing, long-deferred infrastructure maintenance and improving emergency medical response times by adding personnel, fire stations and rescue vehicles.

The latest city of Tampa budget proposal makes history in taking budget transparency to the next level.

Partnering with OpenGov, a leader in cloud technology for local governments, the city is making the budget available on a portal that invites residents to better understand the FY2022 budget, track spending toward major projects, access graphs, charts and other visualization data.

It also helps break down data silos between departments and empower the community to access meaningful metrics about fiscal spending and key initiatives citywide in just a few clicks.

"Our residents deserve to know how their tax dollars are being spent," Castor said. "As good financial stewards, we want to make it as easy and transparent as possible for the public to engage with our budget process. OpenGov provides the 21st-century tools to visualize meaningful data that showcases how funds are spent to keep the city running and transform Tampa's tomorrow."

To see the proposed FY 2022 budget, click here.