Several of Springfield’s city council members voiced concern that the city’s rate of spending could lead to future shortfalls, but a majority still approved a new fiscal year budget of almost $203 million.
The new corporate fund budget for fiscal 2027, which supports most city functions, such as road repairs and police and fire protection, stands at almost the same level proposed by Mayor Misty Buscher in January.
“This year is going to be important to watch,” Ward 10 Ald. Ralph Hanauer said before the City Council voted 7-3 for a final fiscal 2027 budget on Feb. 17.
Hanauer voted for the $202.9 million budget, which covers March 1 through Feb. 28, 2027, even though he said it’s unknown whether a hoped-for boost in tourism-related sales taxes associated with the Scheels Sports Park at Legacy Pointe will materialize as the venue fully opens later this year.
Depending on the level and time frame for that revenue, Hanauer said some budgeted spending on new fire trucks and police squad cars, among other plans, may have to be curtailed when the council votes later on those separate purchases.
Likewise, Ward 9 Ald. Jim Donelan encouraged Buscher to be less than aggressive in filling all of the new and vacant positions provided for in the budget. The budget includes an increase of 84 employees over the current total of about 1,410, an increase of 6%.
Donelan voted in favor of the spending plan – a 7.5% increase over fiscal 2026 spending – as did Ward 8 Ald. Erin Conley, who said it was a “fairly conservative budget in a lot of ways.”
Conley was referring to Buscher’s decision not to propose the city enact its own 1% grocery tax to replace the 1% statewide grocery tax that was eliminated, effective Jan. 1, because of action by the General Assembly and Gov. JB Pritzker.
The result will be a loss of between $5 million and $6 million per year in revenue for city coffers, according to Springfield’s Office of Budget and Management.
Buscher didn’t receive any pushback from the City Council when she opted in the fall not to propose a grocery tax for Springfield to replace the statewide 1% grocery tax that expired at the end of 2025 because of action by the Illinois General Assembly and Gov. JB Pritzker. Springfield and Chicago are the only communities with more than 100,000 residents that opted not to replace the statewide tax with a grocery tax of their own.
The other “yes” votes on the budget came from alderpersons Jeff Cox of Ward 1, Lakeisha Purchase of Ward 5, Jennifer Notariano of Ward 6 and Brad Carlson of Ward 7. Voting “no” were alderpersons Shawn Gregory of Ward 2, Roy Williams Jr. of Ward 3 and Larry Rockford of Ward 4.
Williams said he voted against the budget because of what he considers the city’s structural deficit and its potential to whittle down the city’s budget surplus in the next few years if current spending and revenue trends don’t change.
Buscher has said the city doesn’t have a structural deficit but could face problems in future years if the legislature doesn’t change the way the increasingly expensive municipal police and fire pension costs are financed.
The fiscal 2027 budget is considered balanced because it uses about $24 million from the current $71 million in reserves for operations. The Buscher administration anticipates needing to use another $27 million from the surplus to balance the budget for the fiscal year beginning March 1, 2027.
However, Jeff Egizii, the budget office’s fiscal services assistant director, said it’s likely, because of delays in hiring and other spending, that not all of the budget surplus will be used in fiscal 2027.
Egizii pointed out that in the most recent fiscal year, none of the $14 million from the surplus budgeted to be spent was actually used. In fact, he said $3.2 million in unspent funds from that budget year was added to the surplus.
Williams said the council seems to have abandoned its traditional financial oversight role in favor of supporting the mayor. He said he agrees with the concerns raised in Illinois Times interviews with Bill McCarty, the city budget director under former mayors Jim Langfelder and Mike Houston. Buscher defeated Langfelder in the 2023 municipal election.
McCarty previously told the newspaper that generous raises granted in collective bargaining contracts – such as those negotiated for police and firefighters – coupled with a rise in employee headcount and increases in pension costs threaten to exhaust the city’s surplus in three or four years and create a fiscal crisis.
In response to questions from Illinois Times, McCarty, a Springfield resident who is chief financial officer for the Illinois Board of Higher Education, said March 3: “City leaders can’t pass wildly unbalanced budgets right now and then when the money is all gone later, blame the state and pensions for their problems.
“With three ‘no’ votes, it does appear that some city leaders understand the gravity of the situation,” McCarty said. “Plugging the budgetary hole that they themselves project next year would require doubling the city’s portion of property tax or increasing sales taxes by one-and-one-half percent. How does that not concern city leaders?”
This article appears in March 5-11, 2026.
Using reserves to cover payroll and benefits is widely discouraged, yet the Mayor and Council persist in this practice, over hiring and overpaying numerous staff members. Observe the actions of the RINOS in office. and now another episode of play Musty for me !
We spending 78 million a year on police. Similarly sized Illinois communities spend 45-55 million. We spend 40 percent more and we aren’t 40 percent more safe.
The mental health board and proposed increases should come out of that. Why should we tighten all our belts when the so-called leaders can’t be bothered to do the same?
Again, the number one skill for elected officials in this town and community seems to be “having meetings to have meetings”
Not a single alderperson or mayor have shown true leadership in these matters. That is plain to see. It’s all finger pointing and kicking the can down the road.