City Beat: City proposes smaller fiscal budget

Members of the Springfield Police Department and the local building community are stuck in wait-and-see mode as Springfield City Council presses forward with fiscal 2015 budget plans.

At the May 27 council meeting, Springfield Finance Director Mary Mannix Decker introduced a $311 million budget proposal roughly 1.5 percent below the current year budget. The decrease is largely due to fewer available grant funds, she said.

The downward pressure on revenue has council members looking for places to cut, even as they aim to increase city salaries and public safety staff. During the next few months, council plans to hold a series of budget meetings – beyond the June 30 deadline for adoption of the fiscal 2015 budget – to find areas where the city can trim expenses to free revenue for more police officers, Councilman Jeff Seifried said after the meeting.

About 50 Springfield Police Officers’ Association members held a rally outside City Hall on May 27 calling for more officers to fight rising crime.

“In the last decade, we’ve seen violent crime in our city more than double,” association President Mike Evans said. “In 2013, the citizens of Springfield stood a one in 10 chance of being a crime victim. My own members reported 144 incidents of assault during their jobs in line with their duties. While crime and violence continue to increase year after year, we struggle to meet our own authorized staffing levels in the Police Department.”

Evans said he hoped staffing needs would be addressed soon, but the budget as presented wouldn’t be enough.

“Our concerns have not fallen on deaf ears,” he said, referring to the May 27 City Council luncheon, where plans for a full council review of budget priorities were discussed.

Seifried said budget discussions would include adjusting building permit fees.

“We have to pass a balanced budget to continue operation of the city, but we can make adjustments at any time,” Seifried said. “Over the last couple of weeks, council has looked at a number of options to raise revenue and reduce expenses. One of those happened to be developer fees.”

Currently, the minimum charge for a building plan review is $175, and the fee varies based on complexity. The proposed minimum could reach as high as $1,023, according to a handout provided to council members.

Melissa Higbie, a partner with Esterly Schneider & Associates Inc., was one of three speakers at the meeting who said it was important council preserve economic development while pursuing revenue for public safety and other priorities.

“I think we run a great risk if we raise minimum building permits,” Higbie said. “For instance, if you have a small business that is getting ready to do a small project and you tell them a building permit could cost $1,000 or more, and it is only a $5,000 project, we run the risk first of them not doing the project or, secondly, doing the project without a building permit.”

Other possible fee changes include a 21 percent increase to the $124 sign permit fee; a 17 percent increase on the current $390 fee for land disturbance on properties more than 5 acres; and a 67 percent increase to the $717 final commission/council planning development fee.

Councilman Doug Burlison tried to get the cuts rolling with a proposal to eliminate roughly $60,000 from the budget for the Mayor’s Commission on Children. However, his peers voted down the amendment proposal.

The fiscal 2015 General Revenue Fund is projected to increase by 3 percent to $76.5 million, according to the proposed budget. Decker said the estimate is aggressive compared to recent years when annual revenue has increased 2 to 2.5 percent. Decker said the bold budget plan is based on an estimated 3 percent jump in sales tax revenue, which she said is in line with national economic forecasts from the Federal Reserve Board.

The proposed budget also includes $1.5 million  identified for city staff pay raises, a comprehensive insurance program to cover all departments and a 2.5 percent spike in licenses, permits and fees.

Decker said the 2015 budget proposal adds nine new firefighters to the Springfield Fire Department and five new police officers – positions that were initially grant-funded. Total grant revenue is projected to shrink by 13 percent in fiscal 2015 to $18.3 million from over $21 million.

Return on investment
Springfield Director of Environmental Services Steve Meyer told council members spending $2 million now on development of the city’s sanitary sewer Overflow Control Program could save more than $20 million in long-term system upgrades.

Meyer was speaking to a proposal that would allow the city to extend a contract with Overland Park, Kan.-based engineering firm Black & Veatch by $2.09 million to develop the system, with money to be pulled from reserves in the city’s Clean Water Fund.

He said in May 2012, the Missouri Department of Natural Resources issued the city of Springfield a consent decree, requiring the city spend $50 million by December 2018 on upgrades to its sanitary sewer system to prevent overflow caused by rainwater. Prior to entering an agreement with DNR, the city contracted with Black & Veatch in August 2011 to address the first in a series of needed improvements.

“Almost every major city in the United States has some form of a consent decree. St. Louis’ consent decree was for $4.7 billion over 23 years. Kansas City’s was for $2.5 billion over 25 years,” Meyer said.

He said many cities are investing to build bigger storage basins, but Springfield wanted to take a different approach using preventive measures. “Why not prevent the rainwater from getting into the sewers instead of building bigger sewers?” Meyer said.

Since its original agreement with Black & Veatch, Meyer said the city has found its preventative measures are resulting in $11 of savings for every $1 spent. With the roughly $2 million it spent between 2012 and 2013, Meyer estimated the city saved between $20 million and $24 million, and the proposed bill would extend those efforts.

The measure is scheduled for a vote June 9.