Akron Mayor Shammas Malik’s office unveiled its 2026 capital budget on Monday, making its first pitch this year for Akron City Council to approve a nearly $342 million plan to fund infrastructure and other projects in the city.
Even without adjusting for inflation, the proposed City of Akron 2026 capital budget is the smallest since 2020, due in part to the expiration of funding from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) of 2021, a federal program that distributed more than $350 billion to local governments in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and recession that followed.
The $341.9 million budget this year is $30 million less than the average City of Akron capital budget in the ARPA era. The city has received $145 million since 2021, but regulations required it to be allocated by the end of 2024.
“It is a significant decrease from last year — $39 million less — and a lot of that is due to ARPA no longer being there,” Malik said in a meeting with reporters on Friday. “We were very exacting over the last three months, sitting and going line item by line item to ask, ‘Is this nice to have or a need to have?’”
The city also anticipates spending millions of dollars less this year to fix its sewer system compared to previous years, budgeting under $100 million for only the third time in the dozen years since it began the complete overhaul of the system. Prior to the massive sewer project, the system repeatedly sent massive amounts of pollution into the Cuyahoga River, drawing legal action from the state and federal environmental protection agencies.
Kyle Julien, the city’s planning director, said the proposed budget improves “operational efficiency across the city’s departments, reducing operating costs by making capital investments.”
Funding sources: Most money from the State of Ohio
Most of the 2026 budget comes from the State of Ohio (61%), followed by local money (28%) and federal money (9%).
The vast majority of the $209.3 million from the state in Akron’s budget is for sewer and water systems, including a low-interest $97.3 million loan from the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency and a $78.7 loan for wastewater treatment.
About half of the $95.9 million of local funding in the budget comes from the city’s income tax, in addition to $11.7 million from sewer fees paid by residents and $10.7 million coming from a safety services tax known as IT4.
Of the $29.9 million coming from the federal government, $11.5 million is from the Federal Highway Administration and $9.1 million is for housing programs from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Water and sewer: The ‘nasty work that has to happen in order to have a city’
While the City of Akron winds down the sewer system overhaul instigated by the consent decree, the sewer and water systems continue to be, by significant margin, the two largest expenditures in the capital budget, representing 28% and 30% ($102.2 million) of the total figure, respectively.
“The line items on sewer and water are very big, but you absolutely need them to work,” Malik said. “Being able to make some of these investments on the front end can be painful, and we recognize the burden that it presents to our residents,” but the city must address long-term issues and “this is well worth it,” he said.
Of the $94.3 million allocated to the sewer system, $66.2 million will go toward projects intended to address the federal consent decree over massive sewage overflows and $15.8 million will go toward routine maintenance for the 1,348 miles of sewers, dozens of sewer pump stations and thousands of manholes and inlets.
It’s the “nasty work that has to happen in order to have a city,” Julien said.
The city plans to spend $102.2 million on its water system, including a $23.6 million replacement of the Brittain Road Reservoir in Goodyear Heights.
The city is also budgeting $13.5 million to replace water meters throughout Akron, $12 million on its annual work to reduce the risk of lead exposure for private properties (the city finished removing all lead service lines last year), $10.4 million to replace thousands of pressurized water mains and $3.2 million for a new advanced treatment system to improve drinking water taste and quality, among many other projects.
Streets, bridges and sidewalks
Under the 2026 budget, the city plans to spend $6.5 million to resurface 52 miles of streets and $1.9 million to do spot repairs on brick and concrete streets “to create a more uniform surface and extend the useful life of the pavement.” The budget also lists resurfacing efforts led by the Ohio Department of Transportation, including $3.9 million for Vernon Odom Boulevard and $1.5 million for Tallmadge Avenue.
The city plans to spend $10.8 million to complete work on North Main Street just north of the All-America Bridge, $9.4 million for additional work on a half-mile stretch of South Main Street south of Cedar Street, and $3.3 million on major fixes to 0.6 miles of Home Avenue in the Chapel Hill area.
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Work on and repairs to city bridges — including the Bowery Street Bridge, South Main Street Bridge over the CSX Railroad tracks, and University Avenue — are slated to cost $10.9 million.
The city plans to spend $1 million to address 225 requests to repair city sidewalks. The mayor’s office said that at the start of 2024 — when Malik was sworn in — the city had a three-year backlog of sidewalk repairs. With additional funding, the city plans to have all requests made between 2024 and September of 2025 completed this year.
Public facilities: Police headquarters, airport and Cascade Plaza Parking Deck focus of budget
After nearly 22 months of searching for a potential new headquarters for the Akron Police Department, Malik announced last month the department will stay put in the dilapidated Harold K. Stubbs Justice Center downtown, with three rounds of renovations to occur in the coming years.
The first round of renovations to the police headquarters, according to the budget, will be a $4.2 million fix to the building’s elevators and heating and cooling lines.
Akron Fulton Airport is budgeted for $3.3 million in improvements, with $1.5 million to replace underground fuel tanks with above-ground steel tanks, a $963,265 10-ton dump truck with snow removal equipment and other fixes to runways.
The city also plans a $2 million renovation to the Cascade Parking Deck on West Mill Street and $1.6 million to install a new fire suppression system at the Morley Parking Deck.
Phasing out personal rifles for Akron Police officers
Among the 171 different projects in the budget is $255,000 for gear and equipment replacement for Akron Police officers. Some of that money will go toward purchasing department-issued rifles for patrol officers, who are currently assigned handguns but are allowed to use their own long guns.
The issue gained attention in late 2024 after Officer Davon Fields used his personal Aero Precision X-15 rifle — which department rules allowed him to carry — when he shot 15-year-old Jazmir Tucker.
“Since that shooting, we’ve looked at this and the direction we want to move in,” Malik said on Friday. The initial money in the budget won’t fully fund department-issued rifles for patrol officers, but “it’s going to be the beginning of that and hopefully we’ll be able to move to a point where officers are not carrying their own guns.”