Byrnes Mill city officials plan to shrink its budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year, spending $290,000, or 13 percent, less than this year.
Next year’s budget, which runs from July 1, 2023, to June 30, 2024, calls for the city to spend $1,877,579.60. That’s down from the $2,168,048 in expenditures budgeted for the current fiscal year.
The city expects to bring in a little more than $1.5 million in revenue for the 2023-2024 fiscal year and will need to use $333,528.82 from its reserve funds to balance the budget.
“We have some reserves and we’re using some of those reserves, but we have to get that (deficit spending) aligned because that’s not tenable as a city,” said Ward 1 Alderman Bob Prado.
“You have to make ends meet.”
The Police Department, which takes up more than half the expenditures in the newly approved budget, will see a 16.6 percent cut – with the city projected to spend $188,778 less to run the department in 2023-2024 than is budgeted this fiscal year.
The new budget calls for the Police Department to spend $951,547.09. It has a staff of 11 full-time officers, one part-time detective, one chaplain and one administrative assistant, as well as Police Chief Frank T. Selvaggio.
For the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the Police Department had a $1,140,325 budget.
During the current fiscal year, two police officers were hired, and some equipment was purchased, including two vehicles, using American Rescue Plan Act federal funds distributed to local governments to mitigate the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic over the past fiscal year, Byrnes Mill City Administrator Adam Thompson said.
The city no longer has ARPA funds to cover the new police officers’ salaries but doesn’t want to let go of them, so their salaries, totaling $98,978, will come out of the city’s reserves, Thompson said.
During the June 7 Board of Alderpersons meeting, when the board approved next year’s budget, Selvaggio questioned Thompson’s decision to cut the Police Department’s expenditures.
“I have to have policemen on the street at three o’clock in the morning,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out how to operate a police department.”
According to the newly adopted budget, the city also will cut $27,485.45, or 7 percent, of the administrative budget, a lower cut than what the Police Department will see.
Thompson said during the meeting that the city tried to make equitable cuts from each of the departments.
Prado and Thompson shared a “banter of words,” as Prado put it, over the use of the term equitable to describe the cuts.
“The use of the equity word is a bit problematic because of the percentages we’re talking about. I would have said that everybody got a cut,” Prado said. “If you wanted equity, then all of the percentages (of cuts) would have been the same.”
Thompson reminded board members that funds can be transferred from one department to another, as the need arises.
“It’s just a guideline,” said Thompson. “I will go through it once a month and say, ‘OK, this is where we are at in every department,’ and I’ll send it to (Chief Selvaggio).”
Mayor Rob Kiczenski also said the budget is not set in stone.
“The board has the power, throughout the year, to realign the equity,” he said. “So, if we feel there’s too much over there and not enough here, well of course we can adjust.”
Thompson said the need to cut expenditures is partly due to the end of ARPA funds.
The city received a total of $623,120.14 in ARPA funds and spent about $320,240 of those funds during the current fiscal year and $302,880 during the 2021-2022 fiscal year to pay for a new HVAC system in the city hall, IT upgrades and new computers.
“We didn’t use the ARPA funds to balance our budget,” said Prado. “We used it specifically for things we didn’t have.”
Prado said another problem is revenue isn’t keeping up with expenses.
“In the last couple of years, our revenues really haven’t risen as much as our expenses have,” he said.
The city’s budget for next year includes $355,865.55 for administration costs. The expenditure covers paying the salaries of the administrative staff, including the city clerk and city administrator, and utilities and other expenses to run City Hall.
About $305,135 will be allocated for the Public Works Department to spend on park and street maintenance and other expenses.
The city spent approximately $120,000 on health insurance this fiscal year, and Thompson expects it to go up by 4.7 percent this coming fiscal year. The city covers 100 percent of the cost for its employees’ health insurance coverage.
Thompson said the city’s 23 employees, including members of the police force, will not receive pay raises next fiscal year.
“The numbers don’t lie; we definitely need more revenue,” Thompson said. “And to cut as much as we can.”
He said the city’s sales tax is it largest source of revenue, bringing in $655,000 for the city in the 2022-2023 fiscal year.
Thompson projects the sales tax will bring in a revenue of $664,825 for the city in the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
Thompson said real estate taxes, personal property taxes, and a communication tax for telephone services also are large sources of revenue for the city.
The Byrnes Mill Board of Alderpersons voted 4-0 on June 7 to approve the new budget. Alderpersons Roben Harris (Ward 3) and Glen LaVenture (Ward 1) were absent from the meeting.