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The city administration handed out a revised fiscal
year 2009 budget at Tuesday’s City Council meeting, but some aldermen
complained that the newly-crunched numbers weren’t what they had
requested. The council is set to meet at 5:15 p.m. tonight
(Thursday, Feb. 21) to discuss and approve the budget, but Ward 1 Ald.
Frank Edwards doubts that aldermen will make any decisions until at least
Tuesday. Edwards has proposed a 5 percent cut of all city
personnel — budget line item 1102 — and claims that the
adjustment would save Springfield $3.1 million. These funds, Edwards says,
would instead be divided up, with $1.7 million sent to ease police and fire
pension burdens and the remaining $1.4 million sent to meet such
infrastructure needs as sidewalks and street improvements.
The city’s office of budget and management gave
aldermen calculations that were supposed to reflect the discussed cuts, but
Edwards says he wasn’t satisfied with what he saw. “It doesn’t make sense with some of they
stuff they did,” Edwards says. “It was pretty clear when we
gave it to them how we wanted it — we wanted the 1102s cut by 5
percent, but they cut other things that we didn’t expect.”
As a result, he adds, the city administration will
most likely need to revise the budget again, and aldermen will require
additional time to review the changes. With less than a week to go before the March 1
deadline, Mayor Tim Davlin still hopes that aldermen’s concerns can
be addressed tonight as they complete a line-by-line sweep of the revised
budget. “I would hope everyone will come with the
intention of passing a budget,” Davlin says. Davlin declined to share his opinion of
Edwards’ proposal Tuesday, and instead stuck with a
“wait-and-see approach.” He says the city will work with
whatever the council decides.
Contact Amanda Robert at arobert@illinoistimes.com.
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2008.
