City staff took Evanston City Council members on a guided tour of city’s revenue Monday night, answering questions and offering clarifications along the way.
The special session was an attempt to reach an agreement by city council on projections for the next fiscal year, in which the city is trying to balance an estimated $3 million deficit by March 1.
City Manager Roger Crum said coming to a general agreement concerning the city’s revenue, which he said was “a little simpler in concept” than city expenditures, would help him present a budget proposal by Dec. 31 in a form that is “least objectionable” to the council.
Crum said at the beginning of the meeting that the projected figures were “slightly better” than previously estimated. William Stafford, director of finance, confirmed that the projected revenue will increase $623,330 from what city staff estimated in October to almost $72 million. These new revenues will come largely from increases to licenses and permits, though some revenue will come from parking meter revenues after meter hours were extended this month.
Stafford reiterated the city’s position throughout this budget season and said that the state’s current recession is a major cause of the city’s budget woes.
“The state is facing a $3 billion deficit,” Stafford said, noting that figure denotes a 1.5 percent decrease in revenue. “Our economy, compared to the state’s, is in good shape.”
The city budgeted more than $5 million this year in state income tax revenue but will receive just $4.6 million. Next year, the city is projecting state income tax revenue at $4.8 million.
“That’s a significant hit,” Stafford said. “It’s going to take a year or two to play catch-up with that.”
Ald. Arthur Newman (1st) disagreed with several of the revenue projections, calling one estimation “substantially low.”
City staff estimated revenue from parking tickets at around $2,942,000 — up $42,000 from this year’s projections. Newman said that figure does not include the revenue the city will receive from the four extra hours of parking meter enforcement the city will benefit from next year. He also said the figure is not completely accurate because the city has not been fully enforcing the new meter hours yet.
“I don’t want to throw out a bunch of numbers,” Newman said. “The question is how many more tickets will be written. I hope when the city manager writes the budget he’ll include some of those revenues.”
The revenues shown Monday night were configured without a property tax increase, which city staff has warned is inevitable to balancing the budget in February.
Ald. Ann Rainey (8th) cautioned the council that taxing residents may not be the fair way to overcome the city’s budget problems.
“The residential taxpayer is starting to shoulder a burden that is becoming overwhelming,” Rainey said. “A huge majority was hit after we said, ‘Don’t worry, you won’t be hurt.’ But they are being hurt.” Rainey asked city staff for a memo outlining the tax burden of residents compared to commercial rates.
Although no decisions were made Monday night regarding any cuts and city staff maintained that they were still in the information-gathering stage, Newman said he was optimistic about the budget process.
“I’m totally convinced that no crisis situation exists in the city,” Newman said. “We will have some tough decisions to make, but I think we will come to some conclusion.”
