Tobias Wall
The State Journal-Register
The Springfield City Council Committee of the Whole on Tuesday advanced a plan on how to use more than $2.1 million of payment-in-lieu-of-taxes funds City Water, Light and Power realized at the end of the last fiscal year. Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin, Steve Dove (Ward 9) and Tim Griffin (Ward 10) proposed splitting the excess funds between the city’s police and fire pension funds, which have a total unfunded liability of about $230 million.
McMenamin criticized Mayor Mike Houston’s administration for exacerbating the problem by inaccurately estimating the funds’ rate of return when it calculates the amounts paid into them. He said by over-estimating the rate of return the funds would realize, lower payments were being made, causing the unfunded liability to inflate.
“We’re letting this runaway train go faster and faster,” he said. “A million here and a million there is not going to fix the problem, but we’ve got to put our foot down and stop the bleeding in some way.”
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By a unanimous voice vote, the measure was moved out of the committee to the debate agenda for the next city council meeting on Aug. 6.
In other business, aldermen unanimously approved a resolution asking the Springfield Police Department to step up their presence at the Bel-Aire Motel. McMenamin called the residential motel at 2636 S. Sixth St. “a problem magnet,” and said the city’s efforts to shut it down “has dragged on enough.”
He said the chronic problems at the motel have been a drain on city resources, citing the more than 600 police calls to the property in the last two years. The out-of-state owner, who has amassed more than $100,000 in fines for code violations at the Bel-Aire, is trying to sell it. Houston has said additional fines of as much as half a million dollars are likely to be levied.
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Read more: http://www.sj-r.com/article/20140729/News/140729436#ixzz38zCxPQbE
Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 