Mary Hansen
The State Journal-Register
The Springfield City Council on Tuesday cobbled together a spending plan for the fiscal year that starts March 1.
Approved by a vote of 8-2, the plan spends about $3.4 million from the city’s rainy-day fund and includes only the 1-percentage-point hotel tax increase that was approved two weeks ago. Money for new vehicle purchases was left out, but funding for contractual snow removal, which the mayor had proposed to strike, was added back in.
Ward 8 Ald. Kris Theilen and Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin voted “no.”
The city has $19 million, a healthy 16 percent of its budget, in a rainy-day fund to ensure the city can continue to function in the event of an economic downturn. Accounting standards recommend that the fund stay between 12 and 15 percent, which aldermen say they were trying to accomplish through their proposals. With the city projected to use $3.4 million in the next fiscal year, that takes the fund to around $15.6 million, or about 12.7 percent.
Mayor Jim Langfelder and aldermen hashed out final-hour amendments each had brought to Tuesday’s meeting, calculating levels of total spending and saving as they debated, to arrive at the final compromise. Because of this, a total budget number was not immediately available.
General expenses, spending for police, fire and public works, sits at around $122.6 million, down from the $124 million Langfelder originally proposed. That’s predicated on a three-month hiring freeze.
City Water, Light and Power’s budget, $316 million, was left untouched. A proposal to transfer $1.3 million from CWLP to the city’s general fund was tabled.
The most contentious debate was over transferring funds among accounts. Ward 1 Ald. Chuck Redpath, Ward 5 Ald. Andrew Proctor, Ward 9 Ald. Jim Donelan and Ward 10 Ald. Ralph Hanauer proposed to move $750,000 from a fund usually dedicated to repair buildings and other infrastructure to be used for general spending. The $750,000, they said, was earmarked to roof repairs for the Municipal Center Complex, which they proposed to fund instead with tax increment financing money.
The four aldermen, plus Ward 2 Ald. Herman Senor, Ward 3 Ald. Doris Turner and Ward 4 Ald. John Fulgenzi, approved the transfer, while Theilen, McMenamin and Ward 6 Ald. Barry Becker opposed it. That leaves a separate ordinance to allocate TIF funds for the roof repairs to be brought forward in the coming weeks.
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In other news:
* By a 7-3 vote, the council approved changing the name of a stretch of MacArthur Boulevard that runs south of Wabash Avenue to “Old MacArthur Boulevard.” Senor, Turner and Fulgenzi voted against it.
The aim is to avoid confusion with emergency response dispatch with businesses on the new section of the MacArthur Boulevard extension. But some questioned whether the new section should be changed.
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Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 