Brenden Moore
The State Journal-Register
Members of the Springfield City Council offered their initial thoughts to Mayor Jim Langfelder’s proposed fiscal year 2021 budget Wednesday evening as they kicked off the first of four budget hearings to be held this month.
Budget director Bill McCarty led off the meeting with an overview of the $130.1 million proposal. Later, representatives from the City Council, mayor’s office, clerk’s office and treasurer’s office testified about their departments’ proposed budgets.
Though council members said they were still studying the proposed budget, which dropped late last week, initial impressions ranged from “interesting” and “decent” to “negative.” Some expressed concern about spending for new projects included in the proposal, such as $200,000 for streetscaping on entryways into the city and downtown. Others said it does not include enough for police and fire pensions.
Ward 7 Ald. Joe McMenamin took McCarty to task over the city’s contributions to its police and fire pension systems, arguing that the city has been underfunding them and thus allowing the city’s pension debt to climb.
“We’ve got a bull market for 10 years and yet our pension debt keeps growing,” McMenamin said. “We’re never going to see a better 10 years in the history of the United States, possibly. And yet look what’s happened. Our pension debt has grown, it’s doubled since I’ve been on the council.”
McCarty responded by pointing out that the city has made its required pension contributions every year. He attributed the growth in the city’s unfunded liability to factors like increased life expectancy and mandates from the state that have no financial backing.
Though McCarty said that meeting the state’s requirement that police and fire pensions be 90 percent funded by 2040 would be a challenge, he said there’s more than enough resources to meet current and future benefits.
“We’ve never taken holidays like the state has,” McCarty said. “That’s one of the biggest issues the state has is they took all those pension holidays. The city hasn’t. We’ve gone back to the 90s and it hasn’t happened. We have been making the required contributions.
Langfelder’s budget sets aside just under $25 million for police and fire pensions, about a $1.5 million increase from last year. But, McCarty said an additional $500,000 to $600,000 could be pumped into the system later this year. This is due to a new ordinance on the books requiring that any fund balance above 16 percent be diverted to pay for pensions.
The city’s fund balance is currently at about 19.8 percent, or about $25 million. McCarty said the amount that goes towards pensions will be determined upon the completion of an audit in August.
Still, Ward 8 Ald. Erin Conley said she hopes that increased payments towards pensions do not crowd out investments in other city services.
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Office of the Mayor
• FY21 request is for $3,824,989, down $47,862 from the current fiscal year
• Headcount would remain at 30
• Represents 2.94 percent of corporate fund
Office of the City Clerk
• FY21 request is for $618,319, up about $4,436 from this fiscal year
• Headcount would remain at 5
• Represents about 0.48 percent of the corporate fund
Office of the City Treasurer
• FY21 request is $1,183,247, up $1,976 from the current fiscal year
• Headcount would remain at 12
Joe McMenamin for Ward 7 