Unscrambling a municipal budget

Each spring, I spend about a month trying to uncover interesting tidbits in the city of Charlottesville’s budget for a three-part series timed to coincide with public hearings.

This year, the most compelling story didn’t focus on what was in the budget, but what was left out. The city’s budget proposal spans hundreds of pages of financial info, but one of the most interesting nuggets was hiding in a tiny, seperate PDF listing unfunded city projects.

Here’s the story that came out of it:

Police proposal for Downtown Mall goes unfunded in Charlottesville budget