Council eyes proposed budget in second of 3 workshops

City Finance Director David Holtmann presented the second of three budget workshops for Springfield City Council yesterday.

In it, he outlined requests from city departments that far outweighed those granted in the draft budget document.

The first workshop, described by Holtmann as a high-level overview, was presented to council on March 16. Council is scheduled to vote on the budget June 8.

The city provides a detailed view of the budgeting process on its public-facing website.

In yesterday’s workshop, Holtmann went through budget adjustments for city departments. He reported on an overall increase in budget requests, with $40 million in requests received. These included ongoing needs of $14.7 million, with 90 new positions requested, and one-time needs of $25.3 million after fiscal 2025 carryover funds were exhausted.

The budget proposal falls short of these requests, providing $1.2 million in ongoing funding and $828,000 for one-time needs. That means the draft budget covers only 5% of department requests for additional funds.

Holtmann projected a 4.8% increase – an estimated $5.6 million – in general fund revenues.

Holtmann noted the proposed budget uses 61% of available general fund revenues for pay plan improvements and proposes 2.5 new positions.

The budget presupposes a 2.7% consumer price index adjustment, or $372,000.

Holtman said the general fund makes up 30.7% of the total budget, making it the largest portion. It includes the three-quarter-cent Spring Forward SGF sales tax that funds safety and comprehensive plan initiatives.

The second-largest fund is the enterprise fund, which makes up 25.9% to fund the airport, clean water services, solid waste and golf, followed by the special revenue fund, which makes up 23.4% and includes funding for entities like the Springfield Art Museum, emergency communications, a portion of law enforcement, public health and parks.

In response to a query from Councilmember Abe McGull, Holtmann said the city’s sales tax rate is 8.1%, which is third from the bottom on a list of the largest and the closest Missouri cities. At the top of the list was Kansas City, with a sales tax rate of just under 10%, followed by Branson at 9.4% and St. Louis at 9.2%.

Bringing up the bottom were Willard and Columbia, both at just under 8%, with Springfield the third lowest at 8.1%. Holtmann noted there was only about a 2-percentage-point difference between the lowest and highest cities.

Holtmann also showed a comparison of electric utility franchise fees or payments in lieu of taxes. Springfield collects the second-lowest fee amounts among comparison cities, with 3% collected for electricity and 4% each for gas and water. By comparison, Kansas City collects 6% for each of those utilities, while St. Louis collects 7% each for residential and 8% each for commercial.

Holtmann said City Utilities of Springfield provides about $13.5 million in fee electrical service to most of the city’s facilities that pay for operations through the general fund. He added that PILOT rates are set by the city’s charter.