City Council unanimously approved its $404,012,869 budget for fiscal year 2026 on Monday, ahead of the start of Cook County’s fiscal year on Dec. 1.
The budget includes a $3.5 million increase in property taxes to support public safety pensions, a new Parks and Recreation Fund and the city’s Human Services Fund.
The council passed an amended property tax levy for public safety pensions with a 6-2 vote, reducing the initially proposed levy by $3 million. The amendment was introduced by Ald. Clare Kelly (1st) at City Council’s Nov. 10 meeting. The city will instead draw partially on excess reserves to fund this expense as part of its efforts to fully fund public safety pensions by 2040.
Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th), one of two councilmembers against the levy, attempted to make a further amendment during the vote roll call on the levy.
“I think it’s too little too late at this point, but as I had said earlier I don’t think this is the right path to go down,” Nieuwsma said after the levy passed. “This created a $3 million hole in our General Fund that we’re going to have to fill somewhere.”
Nieuwsma said the council is paving the way for pension funding to be politicized in coming years.
In the future, City Council may have to increase the property tax levy for public safety pensions and backslide on the commitment to fully fund pensions, Nieuwsma said. He added that the council should be “nudging the levy up this year,” to avoid “drastically” increasing the levy next year.
Ald. Matt Rodgers (8th), however, argued in favor of using excess funds and voted to approve the levy.
“We currently are sitting on a pile of excess reserves, and there’s a resolution that the previous council passed saying that that would be a source of revenue to fund pensions if there were excess reserves, and that’s why I will support this,” he said.
Another point of contention arose after several community members made public comments expressing their opposition to a resolution that would authorize Family Focus to move from 2010 Dewey Ave. to 1601-07 Simpson St. and create a disposition plan for the Dewey Avenue location, allowing for its redevelopment.
Family Focus has provided family services, including early childhood development programs and after-school care, to the Evanston community since 1976. In July 2022, the organization received $3 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding from City Council to renovate its building on Dewey Avenue. However, the renovations never came to fruition, and the organization relocated all operations to the Simpson Street location.
Before Family Focus moved into the 2010 Dewey Ave. building, it housed the original Foster School, the only school in the historically Black 5th Ward until it was closed in 1979.
The whole 5th Ward should be part of any discussion related to the Dewey Avenue building, 5th Ward resident and Foster School graduate Priscilla Giles said.
She added that she doesn’t approve of Family Focus moving to the Simpson Street location because it’s “too small for anything.”
The Dewey building was named a historic landmark by former Ald. Robin Rue Simmons (5th) in 2018.
“When it’s sold, there are preservation incentives that can then be used to reuse the building, or they could be used currently with Family Focus in the building — they could use it too,” said Carl Klein, chair of the Evanston Preservation Commission.
Ald. Bobby Burns (5th) motioned for two amendments to be added to the resolution.
Burns’ first amendment supported redevelopment proposals that preserve the building’s legacy as a community anchor by encouraging the proposal to include spaces where residents can learn, grow, access resources and receive support.
His second amendment would include 5th Ward residents in the review of proposals to ensure community priorities are reflected in the selection process.
Rodgers suggested not moving forward with the resolution at Monday’s meeting, but to revisit the resolution after the city incorporates Burn’s amendments into the resolution. City Council will revisit the resolution at its Dec. 8 meeting.
“It’s a cultural landmark for the community, for the Black community. It’s been that way for decades, and I think it should continue that way,” Klein said. “That’s what I think Councilmember Burns was speaking to, was trying to make it so that the community was involved.”
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