By Joe Ragusa
BLOOMINGTON – Thursday night’s Bloomington City Council retreat didn’t yield a lot of discussion on the city’s budget deficit next year.
A second retreat meant to focus more on the budget scheduled for Saturday morning has been canceled so city staff have more time to gather data.
City Manager David Hales said the city’s financial picture will be clearer when numbers for the first half of the fiscal year are finalized.
“We are getting some information showing that we’ve achieved some savings, even more than we had projected, in the first five months (of the fiscal year),” Hales said. “We want to see how much of that is going to carry over into the last half of the year and what impact that’s going to have on our projections for next year.”
The city council is facing a projected $7.3 million deficit in next year’s budget, but half of the revenue from a one percent sales tax increase passed earlier this year is projected by the city to cut that deficit by $4.8 million.
Alderman Kevin Lower said he wanted to dive more into the budget on Thursday, but he understands that city staff needs time for research. He said he’s optimistic that serious budget discussions will be held soon.
“We got started a little earlier (on budget discussions) this year and I had been pushing for that,” Lower said. “I think the open and transparent discussions in public, as a group, are very important.”
Alderwoman Karen Schmidt said she wants to make sure a budget retreat like the one scheduled for Saturday is held soon so the council can sit down and have a comprehensive discussion on every facet of the budget. That includes the new sales tax revenue.
Hales said staff is researching areas targeted by the Budget Task Force like solid waste and the city’s golf courses. He said some recommendations will be ready for consideration as early as next month, although recommendations regarding the golf course specifically might not be ready until March or April.
Joe Ragusa can be reached at joe.ragusa@cumulus.com.
