Aurora elected officials got their first look at the city’s proposed 2017 budget, which looks to be up slightly from last year.
Members of the City Council Finance Committee recently heard a budget presentation from city Finance Director Brian Caputo, who said the city is looking at about a 1.5 percent increase in 2017 from the roughly $370.2 million 2016 budget.
“This whole budget shows quite a bit of restraint,” Caputo said. “But there are a lot of good things in this budget, as far as moving the city forward. Last year, the budget was difficult to balance, this one was even significantly more so.”
The challenge was fighting stagnating or lower than anticipated revenue against expenditures “that are not stagnant,” Caputo said.
“They continue to go up, especially things such as salaries, benefits and so on,” he said.
Consequently, the budget anticipates the city passing a $15.5 million general obligation bond issue in 2017 to cover any revenue shortfalls, mostly to fund necessary capital projects.
Caputo said with the bond issue, revenues would stay about the same or possibly go up about .3 percent, or about $900,000.
“That does include the bond issue,” he said. “This just tells you that revenues are struggling.”
One of the key anticipated increases in the budget is about an 8.7 percent increase in public safety pension fund payments, which are mandated by the state but funded by local government. Caputo said the about $2.1 million increase would cause about a $1.9 million increase in the property tax levy.
“We would certainly like that to be zero, but we’re not going to have that,” he said.
Other than that, Caputo said the levy should stay the same. He said it is possible an anticipated increase in equalized assessed value in the city would balance out the increase in the levy. That could mean a lower tax rate.
“It would be very helpful,” he said. “The pressure on the rate would not be that great.”
At the moment, budget numbers are not definite. Aldermen on the Finance Committee have at least six budget sessions scheduled throughout November, either at Finance Committee meetings or special meetings.
