Crystal Thomas
The State Journal Register
With the public weighing in on the city of Springfield’s budget at Tuesday’s Committee of Whole meeting, discussion between aldermen and Mayor Jim Langfelder got heated.
Last Tuesday, aldermen voted 9-1 against Langfelder’s proposed quarter-cent sales tax increase that would have brought an additional $4.3 million annually in revenue. As a result, the mayor told aldermen they would need to find millions in dollars in cuts, introduce a new tax increase ordinance or choose to spend down the city’s rainy day fund to make the budget balance.
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Langfelder said when he formulated his proposal in January, he chose to be optimistic and base his budget on the lower end of the predicted revenue shortfall range of $8.5 million to $11.5 million. He hoped that tourism to Springfield — because it is Illinois’ 200th birthday — would help with the city’s finances.
He also said the council would not have to make decisions on steep cuts this year if his tax increase proposals from last year had passed.
Langfelder asked aldermen who wanted to cut police and fire services to raise their hands. Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin did, but asked the mayor to break down the question to make a distinction between cutting the police and fire budget and cutting services.
The mayor did not, and went on to say that other cities such as Bloomington, Peoria and Champaign have higher taxes but smaller public safety forces.
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Aldermen will hand in their amendments to the budget by Friday and possibly vote on them at next Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Public input
Part of the Committee of the Whole meeting was set aside for the public to weigh in on the city budget.
Firefighters packed the city council chamber. Aldermen spoke of adjusting the “top-heavy” department, and the mayor discussed laying off 25 firefighters, a cut he didn’t want to make but now was in play after the tax increase failed. Nine firefighters-in-training who were hired in September brought their families. Due to seniority, they would most likely be the first to be laid off.
David Sykuta, a Ward 8 resident, said he didn’t want higher taxes but rather wanted the aldermen to address the structural deficit by looking at employee pay and benefits.
“We just have to come to grips with the fact, we haven’t got what we used to have and (employees) aren’t going to get what they used to get,” Sykuta said. “It’s just not there.”
Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin echoed Sykuta by saying the city needed to slow down salary growth and not offer cost-of-living increases on top of yearly raises. Wages growing at a faster rate lead to higher salaries, which means bigger pensions.
“We are going to have too many folks making massive pensions and we don’t want our children and grandchildren left with that kind of debt,” McMenamin said.
Multiple residents commented on the City Water, Light and Power budget, which doesn’t draw from the city’s general revenue. They asked aldermen to keep funds for an integrated resource plan. The study would look at the utility’s infrastructure and decide when to retire plants.
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Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 