Personnel bumps, water rate hike: what the city council will consider for the FY25 budget
Springfield Mayor Misty Buscher said two areas she was attentive to in the FY25 budget were ones she heard about during the campaign that led to her April 4 election victory.
"The community's concerns were infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure (and) safety, safety, safety and it didn't matter if I was talking to folks on the south end, the west end, the north end or the east end," said Buscher in an interview with The State Journal-Register last week. "Everyone had the same concerns with those two issues."
The full city council will consider the $183 million corporate fund budget Tuesday while also voting on an ordinance that has been one of the hottest topics of the budget season: a City Water, Light and Power-proposed 32% water rate increase for FY25 and FY26.
The corporate fund is the principal operating fund for the city and excludes CWLP.
Before the final budget vote, alderpersons will wrangle with a number of amendments. There were 15 as of Thursday, said Office of Budget & Management director Ramona Metzger, though more than half of those were technical, or bookkeeping, amendments.
Last year, alderpersons addressed over 30 amendments that added $9.56 million to the budget.
"Amendments can affect that bottom line, positive or negative," Buscher acknowledged.
Expected personnel increases
Personnel in the fire and police departments are budgeted to go up and the Office of Public Works also will be on track for a double-digit rise, in part owed to the funding of five zone managers.
Buscher floated the idea of bringing back zone managers, who would check on everything from drains on the streets to fallen down curbs and sidewalks to abandoned buildings, during her campaign.
"A lot of it is community engagement," Buscher suggested. "When we interviewed these people, (we told them that part of the job was) to be proactive on our problems."
The fire department headcount will go from 217 to around 240 under the new budget. That's partly due to staffing a new firehouse being built off Woodside Road and upcoming retirements, Buscher said.
Training sessions for fire personnel take nine months, she said, and one is currently ongoing.
The proposed addition of 16 police personnel would nearly fully staff the department, SPD Chief Ken Scarlette noted during his budget presentation.
The department is increasing its traffic enforcement division, including adding a DUI officer for the first time in years, Buscher said.
Additionally, it will add a neighborhood police officer specifically for downtown. Under Buscher, the number of NPOs has doubled from five to 10.
Corporate fund balance
One of the budget changes, Metzger said, would be borrowing $10 million for the simultaneous construction of three firehouses and $3.5 million fire for equipment. That money would be in the city's capital improvement and capital equipment funds, she added.
"We can borrow those amounts and then we should not have to draw any extra from (the corporate fund) in order to meet the debt service," Metzger said.
By doing that, Buscher said, it would take FY25 to 22.5% as the ending percentage for the corporate fund. FY26 would be 18.7% and FY27 would be 11.6%, if the city did the borrowing, she said.
CWLP officials said a little less than half of the $15 million it anticipated being generated by the proposed water rate increase would go towards addressing aged infrastructure that causes periodic water main breaks and fund the state-mandated replacement of some 11,000 lead service lines still operable.
The funds also would be used for dredging Lake Springfield for the first time in 30-plus years.
'What I need to do'
Besides earmarking $600,000 for the teardown of several units that are part of Olde Towne Apartments, Buscher said she would use $1.2 million American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds on each the lead service line replacement and the Northeast Area Pilot Sewer Investigation.
The city is under a 2013 administrative order from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to investigate sewer system defects and improper connections to the sanitary sewer system that contribute to sanitary sewer overflows.
"As mayor, it's my responsibility not to just kick the can down the road, but address these issues head on," Buscher said. "It doesn't always make me popular, but it's what I need to do."
Metzger said the city needs to be in a contract to spend any remaining ARPA funds by Dec. 31 and the funds have to be spent two years from that date.
City in the ambulance service?
There is $530,000 in the budget for purchasing and equipping an ambulance, if the city decides to get in the business.
Springfield Fire Fighters Local 37 and some alderpersons see that startup as a complement to the three ambulance companies operating in the city.
The move stems from a Memo of Understanding the union and the city signed settling an unfair labor practice from 2021 in which firefighters were acting as sole medical providers. The union successfully argued firefighters should be compensated for that work.
Buscher said conversations still need to take place with the ambulance companies, the city's two hospitals and the union
"It's there as a placeholder," Buscher said. "It doesn't mean we have to spend it or use it."
Metzger confirmed there is an amendment by Ward 4 Ald. Larry Rockford to remove the item.
Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; [email protected]; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Here are 4 things in the proposed 2025 budget for Springfield
