For weeks, the discussion has been focused on how the city will make up for a significant budget shortfall this year. On Wednesday, Mayor LaToya Cantrell shifted the conversation to 2026, and her financial projections were no brighter.

In her annual budget address before the City Council, Cantrell said $200 million in cuts, coupled with new taxes and fees, will be necessary to get the city back in the black, and to stay there.

The mayor proposed a $1.59 billion spending plan, down from this year’s $1.77 billion budget, which is already in a hole that no one is quite sure the depth of.

Cantrell pledged to avoid employee furloughs and layoffs for the remainder of her term, despite shrinking tax collections, evaporating federal grants and dips in other funding sources. But details of ho

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