A month after Evanston City Manager Wally Bobkiewicz challenged the City Council to cut $1 million from capital improvement projects planned for the 2011 fiscal year at a public meeting Jan. 10,aldermen will have the opportunity to meet the challenge at a Valentine’s Day council meeting.
At the meeting Monday night, aldermen will revisit the issue of paying for maintenance projects amid hundreds of millions of dollars in debt.
A report by the Cook County Treasurer released in December ranked the City of Evanston in the top 20 among more than 450 suburban government agencies for debt as a percentage of revenue. According to the report, Evanston’s total debt of $368 million, which does not include unfunded pension liabilities, is more than three times that of neighboring Wilmette.
The City Manager’s Office has developed a plan to spend $5 million on capital improvement projects, mostly infrastructure improvements and repairs, cutting $1.1 million from the previous proposal by denying funding requests for renovations to signal houses at Grosse Point and roof and chimney repairs at the Noyes Cultural Arts Center, according to a staff memo.
The signal houses, adjacent to the Grosse Point Lighthouse, were built in 1880 and house two summer camps operated by the Ecology Center. The $590,000 requested would have addressed rotting doors and failing gutters. The city has applied for federal and state grants to repair the signal houses for the past 10 years but has not received funding, according to a separate memo.
A $450,000 request was made in response to visible deterioration on the Noyes Center’s shingles and chimney. Both capital projects will stall at least until the next fiscal year if the City Council approves the city manager’s proposal.
Bobkiewicz asked city officials to be wary about the Capital Improvement Plan because the work projects are funded by general obligation debt, which is paid off by property taxes. Evanston has approximately $101 million of net general obligation debt.
“The net per capita debt should remain under $900 per person,” Administrative Services Director Joellen Earl said. “Right now we’re at about $1,900.”
However, city officials have reasons to be optimistic about Evanston’s debt future. The credit rating agency Moody’s Investors Service gave Evanston’s general obligation bonds its highest debt rating in 2010, indicating faith in the city’s ability to pay among the financial industry. However, officials said growing pension liabilities – which are not included in general obligation or overall debt figures – and fiscal challenges in local governments across Illinois may threaten the city’s position in bond markets.
“We have been able to go to the debt markets rather freely over the last several years and basically set the dollar amounts that we want to said,” Bobkiewicz said. “But we are beginning to see indicators that the market is going to say ‘no thank you.'”
If the City Council approves the city manager’s proposals for the Capital Improvements Plan Monday night, it will require an amendment to the Fiscal Year 2011 budget. The capital projects would increase the city’s budget to $198.9 million.
