Public gives input on proposed city budget

Springfield City Council had a public hearing on the budget proposal at its regular meeting.

Three people spoke on the $255 million budget, which has been cut by $5.2 million in order to contribute the full actuarial recommendation to the Police and Fire Pension Fund.

Mayor Tom Carlson said the pension fund needs the additional money because it’s a defined benefit plan, meaning that retirees get the same payout regardless of the amount paid in and the amount that money earns when it is invested.

“If the earnings in the fund are inadequate, the citizens have to pay for it,” Carlson said at the meeting. “That’s why in the private sector, these defined benefit plans have gone the way of the dinosaur. As a practical matter, they don’t exist any more.”

One of the three people who spoke at the meeting was Fred Ellison, who recommended that the city ask for a 1 percent sales tax to bring the pension plan to 100 percent funding.

“After listening to all of the discussion, talking to the (Police and Fire) unions and the pension board, I don’t see any way around it,” Ellison said. “We need to have a long-term, permanent solution to the pension fund crisis. We don’t need a Band-Aid – we have a gaping wound that needs to be stitched and healed.”

Mayor Carlson said he’s been amazed by the amount of public input on the budget and said he felt that if the city needs to ask for a pay raise, it would need to do its homework first.

“There’s been talk about refinancing debt, selling property, modifying the pension fund in some way, some kind of privatization, or a tax increase,” Carlson said of ideas submitted by the public. “All of these ideas will get attention, because I don’t think the public would ever support any solution until it can be shown that the council and the administration has considered all the options and shown why something has been accepted or rejected.”

Council is expected to vote on the budget at its May 19 meeting.

See SBJ’s May 12 issue for more City Council news.