City of Champaign Updates

So far this month, the Champaign City Council has focused heavily on budget issues and planning on local programs, infrastructure, etc. There are also a couple study sessions people may be interested in coming up. This Tuesday, the City Council will be looking at funding options for additional Fire staff at the Champaign Fire Department. More information on how that could improve services and a video segment at WCIA here (agenda information here). Next month at the June 25th study session, the Council will again be looking at the reentry housing issue. More information and links on the reentry housing issue at the most recent Cheat Sheet post on the subject here) that touched on veteran populations affected.

Budget issues have dominated the City Council meetings this month. The News-Gazette had an overview of the fiscal demands and pressures facing the Council towards after a meeting earlier in the month:

$3M in unmet needs take focus as Champaign council starts tackling budget
With budget season now in full swing, and the prospect of a $3 million price tag for unmet needs, Mayor Deb Feinen said this month will see a "very serious discussion" on what the city can afford — and how it can afford it.

City council members on Tuesday got their first look at the preliminary numbers for the budget for the 2019-20 fiscal year that starts July 1.

What's not included in the proposed budget, said finance director Kay Nees, are "many needs and council goals for which recurring funding has not been allocated." The city continues to face financial constraints due to slow revenue growth from sales and because of state actions siphoning off money from municipal pots...

One sticking point is about $625,000 needed for three firefighter positions that were previously funded through a grant. Another is the need for two more police officers to meet demand in the city, as well as money for training and to keep up with the cost of the SWAT, canine and high-tech-crimes units. Police will present a staffing study before the council next week.

City needs are expensive and plentiful, too. Nees said there are several temporary positions that should be made permanent if the city wants to continue to meet its level of service. And there are open positions for the director of the CU Fresh Start program and the city's diversity and advancement program, about which staff said "a full-time position is needed in order to make sure the program continues to succeed."

There's also the backlog of capital projects like the Garden Hills drainage-improvement project — which council member Clarissa Fourman said she was happy to see in the list — as well as needed work on arterial streets in the city and for processing the high number of applications and permits that a city with such high levels of development can expect.

Full article here with more information. The week after that the Council heard more on the Youth and Family Empowerment Initiative along with all of the funding and budget concerns with that. The News-Gazette coverage of that meeting had a lot of details here. There's a Cheat Sheet post on the Youth and Family Empowerment Initiative here.

The week after that the City Council had a helpful explanation and presentation of the Capital Improvement Plan for the public's benefit on CGTV (available here). In a nutshell the City plans out a decade in advance how to maintain and replace infrastructure as needed. This requires setting priorities and careful budgeting to get the most out of our tax money while ensuring public safety and the economy we rely on humming along as well.

The News-Gazette had an overview of the Capital Improvement Plan and budget issues in an article previewing the meeting here. Excerpt:

A number of projects still remain unfunded or underfunded, and additional ones are delayed beyond their optimal schedule, according to the memo prepared for tonight's council discussion.

Among them:

— New city facilities for vehicle maintenance, improvements to arterial streets and projects to fill sidewalk gaps, which are unfunded in the 10-year plan.

— The much-talked-about Garden Hills Drainage Improvements project, also nowhere in the 10-year plan, though council members have directed staff to look for ways to advance the project more quickly than scheduled.

— Parking lot rehab projects and maintenance, currently only funded to the level of emergency repairs, at $10,000 a year.

WCIA had a short overview and video segment on the same here. Additional News-Gazette coverage highlighted the concerns about a recession as an inevitability that must be planned for, but there's not a lot of wiggle room and there's only so much local governments can do if the recession is severe:

Planning and Development Director Bruce Knight said in 2010 and 2011, the city had to face tough decisions when it came to what it wanted to fund and what it had to do without. Often, that meant focusing on maintenance projects while leaving large arterial-street projects, infrastructure expansions and other projects on the back burner, he said.

"The capital improvement fund is the most likely place to make cuts" in the event of a recession, Knight said Tuesday night before the Champaign City Council. "It's always possible that a recession would see us cut funding. We did that back in 2010 and 2011. We had to delay projects, and we're really just now catching up. It's taken us until now to repay the fund and get back to full funding of capital projects."
...
A recession would eliminate the flexibility to add new projects and address needs that pop up, he said.

That article available here. The Champaign Park District Board's collaboration with the Champaign City Council on summer camps was also in the news with the next steps towards approving extending access to the program to the Garden Hills neighborhood and Douglas Park area directly:

As many as 78 boys and girls will have an opportunity to take part in camps in the Garden Hills neighborhood and at Douglass Park this summer.

The Champaign Park Board voted 3-0 at a special meeting Wednesday night to approve an intergovernmental agreement with the city of Champaign whereby the city will provide $32,478 to fund the camps, while the park district will provide personnel to run them.

The agreement is expected to be ratified by the Champaign City Council at an upcoming meeting.

"This is a phenomenal program for the kids," park board President Craig Hays said. "This is a great example of how the park district and the city work together for the good of our children."

Park district Executive Director Joe DeLuce said the district and the city have been involved with camps since 2007.

More preliminary information at the full article here. One last addition, Smile Politely had an overview of the Festival District open alcohol container event (Friday Night Live 2019 on May 31st) approved under new liquor rules in Champaign here. News-Gazette has more details here.