Two days after our Sunday report on the Chattanooga Food Bank being absent from the Hamilton County 2026 proposed budget, the mayor's office called with good news.

"Mayor Wamp plans to propose another one-time expenditure of opioid abatement funds for the Food Bank in the future," said Paris Vinnett, director of communications.

Here's the backstory:

In 2025, Mayor Wamp used federal funding - specifically, opioid abatement funding - to include $50,000 for the Chattanooga Area Food Bank (CAFB) in last year's budget.

The county mayor made it clear: this was one-time funding and - as officials reminded us - no other county mayor has ever included the food bank in its budget. (More on that in a moment.)

Such a decision is generous and consistent with Wamp, as I stated in Sunday's piece.

In June 2025, the food bank was notified of the good news:

One year later, when creating the 2026 proposed budget, Mayor Wamp did not include the food bank. The $50,000 in 2025 was not part of the 2026 budget.

That's when we stepped in with our question: why the hell not?

The mayor's office said the $50,000 was never meant to be an ongoing expenditure and took odds with Sunday's description of the $50,000 being "cut" from the proposed budget. (This was not any sort of DOGE-inspired decision, officials said.)

It's a fair point: can you cut something that was never really there?

(Here, it feels like opening the door for semantics. If $50,000 was there one year, but not the next, is that cutting? If a tree falls in the forest, but isn't included in the budget, does it make a sound?)

"The Food Bank was not cut from the county budget," said Vinnett.

Either way: affording food is a trip-wire for many families right now.

And helping them is even harder.

For food bank officials, the decision still came as a gut-punch. This year - at a time of tremendous need - they had applied again for continued funding.

"We followed the same process and were informed by phone call from the mayor’s office that it was a 'tight budget year' and that we were not being included," said Jeannine Carpenter, chief of communications.

"Outside agency funding or appropriations are always annual allocations by Hamilton County and decided at the pleasure of the mayor and then, subsequently the council," she continued. "There’s never a guarantee of funding from one year to the next. Rather, the funds typically reflect the priorities of the administration and the county commission."

All this comes at a time when food insecurity grows frighteningly widespread in this region - as federal cuts, rising food costs and instability make families more stretched, stressed and scared.

And make the food bank's job - officials estimate a 20% loss in funding this year - more difficult than ever.

Rightly, Mayor Wamp deserves praise for including the food bank in last year's budget.

And for attempting to do so again this year.

Yet, at the end of the day, one fact rises above the rest:

Funding hunger-relief is not a normal part of the county budget.

Funding jails, schools, county infrastructure and parks? Yes. Thank heavens, yes.

But not food. Not hunger.

As the county mayor's office reminded us: no other administration has funded the food bank.

This evokes great gratitude - thank you, Mayor Wamp - and great dismay. Again: why the hell not?

Why is hunger-relief not a normalized, annual part of the county's budgetary responsibility?

Should it be? This is a question we as county citizens can ask ourselves. Is funding hunger-relief organizations part of the county's responsibility, in a similar way it funds schools and the sheriff's office?

This question rises beyond Wamp.

With a rainy day fund of $143 million, the county has the resources to direct more funding towards agencies that help feed regional families.

Should it?

Thanks to all our engaged Food as a Verb readers who contacted the mayor's office. For continued engagement:

The County Commission may be contacted here.

Mayor Wamp's office may be contacted here.

• Two reminders for this coming weekend:

The 2026 Farm-Olympics are this Saturday!

Dr. Peggy Douglas's "Roots of Resilience" program - sharing the oral histories of Meigs County farmers - is Sunday.

Story ideas, questions, feedback? Interested in partnering with us? Email: david@foodasaverb.com

This story is 100% human generated; no AI chatbot was used in the creation of this content.

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