The city of Eureka anticipates spending nearly $27 million more than it collects in revenue this fiscal year as it completes major projects and begins new ones.
The city anticipates spending $54,498,227 while collecting $27,710,070 in revenue this fiscal year, which began July 1 and ends June 30, 2025, according to the 2024-2025 budget.
Eureka started the fiscal year with a projected overall fund balance of $43,106,344, and it is projected to finish the fiscal year with an overall fund balance of $16,318,187.
Most of the almost $27 million of deficit spending will cover the cost of the construction of a new government center, which will be named Michael J. Wiegand Justice Center; replacing the Allenton Bridge; and installing additional flood mitigation efforts.
Eureka will use revenue from its Park/Storm Water Control Sales Tax, the Proposition E Public Safety Sales Tax, a lease-purchase agreement approved last year, revenue from the 2022 water and sewer system sale, and the city’s street and road funds and grants to cover the nearly $27 million of deficit spending.
Voters approved Prop E, a 1/2-cent sales tax, in 2018 for the construction of a new Police Station, which is part of the government center, replacing Allenton Bridge and for flood mitigation measures. The city anticipates collecting nearly $3 million from the Prop E sales tax during the 2024-2025 fiscal year, the budget said.
According to the city’s budget, Eureka also will spend more than $12.6 million from a lease-purchase agreement approved in August 2023, $5.6 million from the 2022 water system sale, $900,000 from the city’s street and road fund and grant revenue to help cover the costs of the three projects.
Mayor Sean Flower said more than $7 million in state and federal grants have been secured for the projects, including a $3.4 million East-West Transportation Improvement Grant for the Allenton Bridge replacement and a $4 million Missouri Department of Natural Resources grant for flood mitigation.
Flower said without Prop E, these grants would be nearly impossible for the city to secure.
“They’re big grants,” he said. “Once you’ve raised money for Prop E and have a sales tax in place, you know you have cash, then it makes it a lot easier to get a grant because you’re a matching grant – the state or the (federal government) are not the only ones in the deal. They don’t want to waste their time because they know they’re not going to authorize the grant when the city is not going to participate initially.
“That’s the power that Prop E is giving us now.”
Public Safety Sales Tax Fund
Flower said one of the city’s biggest priorities this fiscal year is to uphold promises made to residents when they approved Prop E.
“What we’ve looked at is, on the big projects like the police building, courts and City Hall and then the bridge and the upcoming stormwater work and the river flood work is all part of Prop E,” he said. “Those are all ones we have funding for, and we also received several federal grants to kind of supplement that. Those are always our top priorities because they’re all promises we made to the public that we would make those infrastructure projects happen. We put those first (in the budget).”
To finance the government center project, Allenton Bridge replacement and flood mitigation efforts, the city entered an $18.9 million lease-purchase agreement with United Missouri Bank in August 2023. According to city documents, the project fund balance is held at UMB until the funds are used.
The government center, which will house City Hall, the Police Station and municipal court, is expected to be completed by the end of this year. Eureka is spending $10.7 million of Prop E funds to cover construction costs for the Police Station portion of the building.
According to the budget, $4.5 million is allocated for the municipal court and City Hall portions of the project out of the 1/2-cent capital improvement sales tax fund. The city is allowed to transfer money from that fund to cover capital improvement projects costs.
Flower said construction is expected to begin on the Allenton Bridge this fall. The crumbling bridge will be replaced with a four-lane bridge that connects several Eureka subdivisions along Main Street with Hwy. 66 and the I-44 on-ramp.
The project is anticipated to cost $7 million, according to city documents. Eureka is using a $3.4 million Transportation Improvement Grant to pay for nearly half of the project.
Barb Flint, Eureka’s financial director, said she and City Administrator Craig Sabo worked to apply for the grant funding.
“(The grants) mean quite a bit because, of course, it helps divert the costs because the grant will reimburse the city,” she said. “It’s huge. It’s an important factor for our finances.”
Flower said the city is renewing its efforts to implement flood mitigation measures this year. The city is allocating $10 million from the Prop E Public Safety Fund for flood mitigation analysis and implementation, according to the budget. The cost will be offset by the $4 million grant from the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
The future work on flood mitigation will be even more substantial than the previous creek cleanout and brush removal efforts, Flower said. The city is researching ways to protect from river flooding.
“We’ve got some different plans for different areas that we’ll be getting out there to the public over the next two to five months,” Flower said.
A new line item
Flint said the city has budgeted $250,000 in the capital improvement fund for engineering, architectural or other professional services to generate preliminary cost estimates for potential projects. She said the Board of Aldermen would vote on proceeding with these projects in the future.
The additional budget line will help the city be more forward-thinking on future projects, Flower said.
“The idea is that it would be nice to come in next year and have good cost estimates and more engineering and data on any projects that you potentially do for the following year,” he said. “In the past, a lot of times, we would get to the budget process and say, ‘Well, it would be nice if we could do such and such upgrade,’ but we wouldn’t really have a guess to a kind of placeholder amount as to what the project might cost. It might take you quite a while to even do all the research on it.”
Flower said having cost estimates will make Eureka more efficient. He said the city will be able to prioritize certain projects with more accurate cost estimates. The aldermen and staff will work to compile a list of potential projects to research, and the board will eventually vote on which ones to work on at certain times based on the research, Flower said.
Other city improvements, raises
In addition to the numerous capital improvement projects, Flower said the city plans to complete more than $750,000 worth of road repairs and street upgrades this year.
According to the budget, the planned projects are upgrades to North Central Avenue, Bald Hill Road, North Virginia Avenue, Beverly Street, Second Street, Third Street, Walden Drive, Muir Street and Shaw Drive.
Eureka anticipates spending $215,000 on general street maintenance this fiscal year, the budget said.
“We’ve tried to emphasize in our budget that road repair and street upgrades are more of a core function that we need to take care of because they’re all city streets,” he said. “There’s another, I believe, almost $1 million for road improvement work that has been cut loose this year that (Public Works Department Building Commissioner John Bogg) is about ready to go on.”
Eureka will spend $772,991 more for city and Police Department employees’ salaries and benefits this fiscal year with city employees receiving approximately a 3 percent raise and officers’ salaries increasing based on a step program. The city is projected to spend $8,673,935 on salaries and benefits this fiscal year after spending $7,900,944 last fiscal year.
Eureka has 39 full-time employees, 26 Police Department employees and between 70 to 100 part-time employees, depending on the time of year, Flint said.
The Board of Aldermen voted 5-0 on July 2 to approve the 2024-2025 budget. Alderman Jerry Holloway was absent from the meeting.