Proposed city budget under scrutiny 

Police and Building Development Services funding in the next city budget took center stage during the May 31 Springfield City Council meeting. 

The city’s budget ordinance for the fiscal year running July 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023, received its first reading, with the second reading and vote on the budget scheduled for the next regular meeting June 13. 

The budgeting process started April 30 when council received the budget document from city staff, which conducted four workshops in April and May. At last night’s meeting, however, one council member and several members of the public urged different priorities for portions of the document. 

Councilperson Craig Hosmer spoke up about the Springfield Police Department budget, noting the force is about 50 officers short, with a budget of $65,000 per missing officer – meaning some $3.2 million earmarked for officers went unused by SPD. Most of that unspent money is to be returned to the general fund. 

But Hosmer said he had been on council for nine years, and the SPD has been short of officers the entire time. 

Hosmer made a motion to amend the budget to eliminate three unfilled officer positions and use the funds to add two traffic safety officers and one investigative service specialist. 

City code requires a balanced budget, so for expenditures to be added to it, adjustments must be made to pay for them. Hosmer’s motion would eliminate three regular officer positions to pay for the new non-sworn personnel; however, SPD has not operated at full strength in many years, so the elimination of three unfilled positions from among 50 or so may not be felt for some time. 

City Manager Jason Gage clarified that traffic officers, who are not sworn officers, are responsible for enforcing parking regulations on public streets, issuing warnings and tickets for non-moving violations, providing traffic control, addressing stalled vehicles, and responding to accidents. 

Hosmer said, “When you don’t have enough traffic service officers, you have commissioned officers doing that job.” 

The investigative service specialist would be able to help with requests for data from officer-worn cameras, a task that is new to the department and time-consuming for its non-sworn staff. 

Councilperson Richard Ollis raised the concern that Hosmer’s suggestion was not routed through SPD and Chief Paul Williams. 

“My only issue with this is that I’m not sure that I want to as a councilperson be deciding staffing issues from the dais,” he said. 

He noted that department heads, staff and the city manager are the proper people to make staffing suggestions. 

Councilperson Matthew Simpson said a better budget is not achieved piecemeal, but rather by considering the needs of the entire city holistically. While the city needs sworn officers, Simpson said, he also sees a need for more BDS staff to take care of nuisance properties. 

“There are a number of areas where there is a need – we need more staff,” he said. 

But Hosmer objected to that line of thinking. 

“People talk about the budget like it’s some foreign document,” he said. “We are responsible for setting the budget for the city of Springfield.” 

By that token, he said, if a councilperson wants more BDS staff, that member should propose exactly that. 

Hosmer added that he didn’t make up the request for two traffic officers and an investigative service specialist; rather, Williams made that request to the city manager, he said. 

Hosmer called his proposal a support multiplier. 

“If public safety is a priority, we have to go ahead and change our budget,” he said, adding that the budget is where the city can change what is happening on the streets. 

He noted that the $3.2 million is lumped into the carryover budget, it likely will be used to repair air conditioners or build sidewalks, but it will not be used for law enforcement. The three positions he proposed fill a need, he said. 

“If we as a council don’t support public safety enough, God help us, and God help the city of Springfield right now. We are in a poor situation right now,” Hosmer said. 

Hosmer’s amendment was approved 7-2, with Ollis and Simpson voting against it. 

BDS needs 
Several members of the public approached council during the comment period on the budget ordinance to request more funding for BDS to address nuisance properties in neighborhoods. 

“Nuisance properties are definitely on the mind of a lot of us,” said Becky Volz, president of the Woodland Heights Neighborhood Association. 

Volz urged council to review the BDS budget and fill its metaphorical gas tank. 

“BDS needs more people and resources to launch our city out of this car-out-of-gas situation so we can move forward,” she said. 

Other community members, including Julie Bloodworth, Eric Pauly and Geraldine Miller, also requested more money for BDS, but Mayor Ken McClure asked each of these residents the same question: What funding would they cut in the budget to provide more funding to BDS? 

None of the residents had a ready answer, as none of them were well versed in nuances of a complex proposed budget of $445 million. 

Rusty Worley, co-chair of the city’s Nuisance Property Work Group, addressed the issue of how to pay for BDS personnel in his comments at the end of the feedback period. 

Worley said the funds can come from fines, which he described as dollars left on the table. 

“We have not fully implemented fines nearly to the extent that we could,” he said. 

Worley noted repeat offenders, some of whom have been nuisance property offenders for years or even decades, can be issued fines to help pay for the kind of changes residents want. 

“The dollars that we’re talking about, many of these are one-time dollars that will really help bring transformational change to this issue,” he said. 

"This is the time to do it. This is the time when we have more resources on the table than we’ve ever had,” Worley added. 

The will of the people is one of these resources, he said. 

Worley said the Forward SGF comprehensive plan stresses neighborhood revitalization as a key focus area. 

“When you talk about quality of place, this is it,” Worley said.