Louisville Metro Council members avoided some controversial cuts as they passed the city budget on Tuesday night, but that doesn't mean their spending plan will be painless.

To cover funding of the Middletown library, opening two pools next summer and keeping weekly yard waste and recycling collection, among other shifts, the Louisville Metro Council's budget makes changes that could have lasting effects on the city's most poor, most marginalized communities and on public safety.

"Some we'll feel immediately, some we'll feel a few years down the line," Councilman Markus Winkler, D-17th District, said of the cuts.

"When you're not intervening in mental health, or in drug rehabilitation services, or in violence interruption, those are things that we will feel," said Winkler, who was a co-sponsor of a tax hike ordinance that could've allowed the city to avoid some of the cuts.

The budget ordinance passed 24-1 Tuesday night with many changes from Mayor Greg Fischer's original budget proposal. Fischer has said he will not veto the plan because the city needs the "certainty" of a budget, but still raised concerns.

"The numbers balance," he told the Courier Journal on Thursday, "but the next question is what the human cost is."

Councilwoman Madonna Flood, D-24th District, was the sole vote against the budget. She said the citizens of Louisville deserved better, referencing the tax hike that she supported.

"I, in good conscience, cannot vote for something that puts the most vulnerable people in crisis situations," Flood said, to applause from people in the audience.

Councilman James Peden, R-23rd District, was not present for the vote.

See the list:Louisville Metro Council finalizes proposed budget and make cuts

The revised plan strips money from the Living Room, a diversion program to help people with mental illnesses or substance abuse problems, as well as much of the money Louisville has typically sent to nonprofits and the city's Cure Violence "interrupter" program, meant to curb violence by treating it like a disease.

Additionally, public safety is still getting hit, despite some council members' statements that the budget could be cut without hurting operations like police, fire and EMS.

The city is expected to lose a firehouse on Grade Lane by the airport that the union doubts will ever reopen and an ambulance from Louisville Metro EMS. The city also will likely see a net decrease in police officers on the street this time next year, thanks to a canceled recruit class and anticipated officer departures.

And, importantly, the council's budget shifts operation of the city's youth detention center from Louisville Metro to the state, even though the state has said it cannot operate a detention center near Jefferson County.

That means Louisville youths facing charges, who are predominantly black, will likely be shipped to one of six other detention centers across the state, some of which are more than 100 miles away.

Sending those juveniles outside the county – and away from their support systems –probably won't be a recipe for positive change, said Councilwoman Nicole George, D-21st District, who also voted for the tax hike and is a former social worker.

With children, positive behavior changes happen when "we're able to capitalize on assets — and not pluck a kid up from their home and home life and move them out to another place and hope for the best," she said.

Council members also stripped money from the "interrupter" program, to eliminate the three sites run by No More Red Dots and the YMCA, which came under scrutiny in recent months.

Previously:Violence 'interrupters' in spotlight as city pauses payments, hospital cuts ties

City officials including police Chief Steve Conrad had praised the model, which in Louisville was trained on hot spot neighborhoods including Russell, Shawnee and Portland, as a proactive way of stopping crime.

Rashaad Abdur-Rahman, the city official charged with overseeing the office that managed Cure Violence, wrote in a recent opinion piece that the "interrupter" intervention and prevention model is "necessary to create the safe and healthy communities that we all deserve."

Asked if the council's revised budget was equitable, Councilman Bill Hollander, a 9th District Democrat who also is the budget chairman, said: "I think we had to make difficult choices."

Fischer: Budget changes 'may deepen inequities'

Though Fischer indicated he wouldn't veto the budget ordinance, he did air some concerns with the Metro Council's changes in a statement after Tuesday night's vote.

For one, he said council members kept library hours the same by closing Youth Detention Services, "before we can work out a solution with the state to keep our most vulnerable youth near their families and their schools."

Moving operations to the state was an option in Fischer's original list of cuts in February as he campaigned for a tax hike. But he dropped it from his April budget proposal, largely because of "concerns about the impact on children and equity challenges," a spokeswoman said.

"Nobody wants to be in the youth detention center. But the question is, if they are, how important is it for them to keep the connection to their families, their schools together?" Fischer said in an interview Wednesday. "The city decided a long time ago that's important."

Saying he wants "what's best for the kids and best for the families," Fischer said his team had been in talks with the state about transferring responsibility but wanted more time. His budget expected talks to continue through the end of the fiscal year in June 2020.

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Fischer also noted Tuesday night after the budget vote that the council funded the Middletown library and increased their own discretionary funds in part by making "deep cuts" to violence prevention efforts and by cutting offices that work to create economic development and to make government more efficient.

Fischer has said equity was a major factor in his budget proposal, which cut zero community centers, kept most Neighborhood Places running and proposed closing libraries near other branches.

"They were just moving small amounts of money here at the end," Fischer said Wednesday. "When you put money in suburban street sweeping, suburban fire or Middletown library, you took it away from Safe & Healthy Neighborhoods. It made a difficult situation even worse."

Youth detention center concerns

Hollander, the budget chair, said he's very concerned about the impact moving youth detention operations to the state will have on children, their parents, their grandparents and the community.

"On the other hand, it's a very, very expensive program run by the state in every other community in Kentucky," he said. "And we are forced to pass a balanced budget with rapidly increasing pension costs."

It's true that Jefferson is the sole county in the state to operate its own youth detention center and that reimbursement payments from the state don't come close to covering the full cost.

But George, speaking to the Courier Journal last week, said there are things that make Jefferson County unique, adding that she's concerned about the effect of moving kids from their support systems, from cultural sensitivity and from educational and behavioral health service continuity.

Previously:Does Fischer want to raise Louisville property taxes? Here's what his budget says

George also questioned whether the city would end up paying a price later for not helping juveniles while they're children, when they're the most capable of change.

"Do we want to make those investments on the front end of life, or do we want to wait and try with adult jail?" she said. "If we don't ensure the youth have the best services now, are they going to cost us as adults down the road, in the way of detention?"

"The real question to ask is ... where do we want to make our investments?"

That's a sentiment shared by Winkler, who used the example of nonprofits not getting city funding and being squeezed by Metro United Way, as well.

"What happens to the at-risk youth who we're not intervening in today? Those at-risk 11-year-olds, 12-year-olds, 13-year-olds? When they're older, and they don't have positive change come into their life through some of these organizations?"

The price of police, fire station losses

After rejecting Fischer's proposed insurance premium tax hike, several council members were vocal proponents of the idea that savings could be found in the budget without taking away from critical public safety efforts.

And while the council budget changes do send some additional money toward suburban fire and Louisville police, the goal of preserving all public safety dollars did not pan out.

"I personally didn't get everything I wanted in public safety, particularly with LMPD," said Councilman Anthony Piagentini, R-19th District. "... This time next year, we will have less officers. And I do think that's a problem."

Piagentini, who voted against the tax hike, said he plans to devote attention to the issue moving forward.

The council did send $50,000 to a recruit allowance fund, but Nicolai Jilek, the president of the union representing Louisville police officers, said Tuesday that anything shy of a "significant investment to ensure the long-term ability of the city to provide adequate public safety, in my view, will be a failure."

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Losing police officers, as the department likely would under this budget, is an effect that will continue to impact the city for months and years to come, he said.

Firefighters, too, have made their displeasure with the budget known.

"Will the loss of this fire station mean greater risk to the community? Of course," union president Brian O'Neill wrote in a letter to Metro Council members. "Will the loss of this fire station equate to higher insurance rates, equaling or even surpassing the tax increase that Metro Council voted down? Absolutely."

And, despite public scrutiny and questions around the program, supporters say ending the "interrupter" program could be a lasting detriment as well.

Abdur-Rahman did not respond to Courier Journal requests for comment, but wrote in an opinion piece that the last year of the program, which was a pilot year, led to a decrease in homicides and shootings in the focus areas of the Cure Violence program.

"Let's reject the racist fearmongering about 'paying criminals' and continue to realistically invest in a public health strategy that implements proven initiatives," he wrote before the budget vote.

These cuts are "to the muscle of the city," not just waste or fluff, Fischer said.

Council members were not able to find spare money in the budget entirely without pain to the city, he said, so he hopes that they and residents understand Louisville needs investment.

"Hopefully the council, as we've gone through this budget process, understands the importance of investing for the future," Fischer said, "and we'll get back on track here in these next several budgets."

Darcy Costello: 502-582-4834; dcostello@courier-journal.com; Twitter: @dctello. Support strong local journalism by subscribing today: www.courier-journal.com/darcyc.