City Beat: Despite questions, council moves on $311M budget

The city’s budget was approved, but cuts and raises are still up in the air.

At the June 9 Springfield City Council meeting, council members unanimously approved the $311 million fiscal 2015 budget proposal despite lingering questions surrounding staff pay increases and funds for additional Springfield Police officers.

The budget is down from $316 million set for the current fiscal year, largely due to a decline in available grants. It includes $76.9 million for the city’s general fund, which is roughly flat from the current year. The city’s next fiscal year begins July 1.

After council approved the budget, Springfield Human Resources Director Sheila Maerz introduced an ordinance to increase pay for all city employees by 1 percent and permit merit raises up to 3 percent.

City Manager Greg Burris said the budget bill sets the major financial components for next year, and the salary ordinance outlines the way compensation is delivered to employees. He said $9.1 million in budget requests were rejected in order to make room for pay raises outlined in the salary proposal.

“Please understand that no one wishes the compensation increase could be larger than our leadership team,” Burris said, calling employee retention one of his top priorities. “The city of Springfield won’t be able to pay competitive salaries in the future unless we make some radical changes to the way we do business.”

He pointed to the Springfield News-Leader’s recent public salary survey in which the city only had two direct employees among the area’s top 100 salaries as an example of the city’s need to focus on increased pay. Burris earns just over $200,000, and Assistant City Manager Colin Quigley is paid $123,000. Former Greene County Administrator Tim Smith was recently hired on at nearly $140,000 for the deputy city manager role.

City Utilities and Springfield Public Schools, which are owned by the city but operate independently, had multiple employees on the News-Leader’s list of 100 positions: 43 CU staff members and three from SPS.

“If we’re not even competitive within the public sector, how can we expect to be competitive within the entire marketplace of talent?” Burris said.

No members of the public spoke to the salary ordinance, and a vote is scheduled June 23.

While up to 3 percent in pay increases had been carved out of the budget for employees, both the International Association of Fire Fighters and the Springfield Police Officers’ Association have retained their rights to negotiate for more pay. Burris said the budget could be amended later with council approval, depending on the outcome of negotiations.

At the public hearing for the budget bill held during the May 27 meeting, about 50 members of the SPOA attended the proceedings to show support for hiring more police officers.

Councilman Jeff Seifried has said a series of budget meetings would be held during the next couple of months to find funds that could be used to hire more police officers. At the council meeting, Seifried reaffirmed council’s commitment to that process.

“We have set the priority in saying that we will continue to focus on the budget. I just want to remind everyone here that it is up to us, working with staff, to make that happen,” he said.

Coal-ash debate
The end of the June 9 meeting featured eight speakers who signed up to address council about their concerns over City Utilities’ proposed coal-ash landfill. In all, about 30 Sierra Club members turned out for the meeting.

There were no related bills on the docket, but CU’s $4.8 million detailed site evaluation process is beginning to ramp up.

Sierra Club member Jennifer Connor said last year CU secured a so-called legislative free pass to move on to the detailed evaluation process after the Missouri Department of Revenue denied CU’s request to build a coal-ash landfill on the grounds of the John Twitty Energy Center.

“Typically, when DNR denies a site, that’s the end of the story. In this case, that didn’t happen,” Connor said.

DNR denied CU’s preliminary request stating the karst typography at the plant made it susceptible to sink holes, which could threaten groundwater. Rep. Lincoln Hough, R-Springfield, with the guidance of CU, added an amendment to a DNR omnibus bill that allowed the utilities provider to skip the preliminary review in favor of a detailed site evaluation.

Coal ash is the byproduct of burned coal, and it can contain harmful materials such as mercury and arsenic. Citing five sinkhole collapses on the plant grounds tied to its coal-ash reservoir, DNR said in its denial letter the suggested sites for the landfill proposed significant threats for a catastrophic collapse.

“Yes, we are the Sierra Club, and we don’t like coal. That much is true,” Connor said. “But we understand that the material needs to be stored somewhere, and we are asking for something simple: that City Utilities store this in a stable area.”

Steve Stodden, CU’s associate general manager of electric supply, said reservoir collapses have been remediated and karst typography runs throughout the southwest Missouri area. He said it could be very daunting, if not impossible, to find any property in the area that DNR would approve for such a landfill through a preliminary site investigation.

“The folks (at the council meeting) were very passionate about water, very passionate about the environment, and I would say that we share their passion,” Stodden said of the Sierra Club representatives. “There is nothing we want to do in power generation that is going to cause a problem with water. We are the water utility as well as the electric utility, and we take those responsibilities extremely seriously.”

Stodden said a detailed investigation, which should begin this summer and last around two years, will determine if CU can build the landfill at the Twitty Center while still protecting the area’s groundwater.

Jefferson City-based Gredell Engineering Resources Inc. is under contract to perform the detailed evaluation, and Stodden said Roddy Rogers was named project manager. Rogers, a water resource manager for CU and a geotechnical engineer, is president of the Tri-State Water Resource Coalition.

Stodden said there are many ways to protect the environment without moving off-site, and CU wants to explore those opportunities through its current evaluation process. CU officials have estimated moving off-site could cost the utility $125 million in transportation expenses during the landfill’s 50-year life cycle.

He added most people would likely object to a coal-ash landfill moving in next door, which is why CU isn’t giving up on the Twitty Center site.

“It seems if we could find a way between all the engineers in America to send a man to the moon in the ’60s, we could find a way to build a landfill in southwest Missouri,” Stodden said.