Springfield City Council to review city budget at city council meeting Monday

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) - Springfield City Council is set to review the annual budget written up by city officials during Monday night’s council meeting.

The budget would serve as a guide for how the city would spend their money from July 1 of 2023 to June 30 of next year.

“We started this process back in late November, Early December,” said Springfield Director of Finance, David Holtmann. “We have to get it in front of city council to have a month prior to approval by June 30.”

This year, the city is proposing an increase in the budget, from $444,934,471 to $495,690,888.

Holtmann says they’re able to afford the increase thanks to an increase in sales tax revenue. This year, they raised more money thanks to sales tax than previous years.

“Typically for the city, we generally look at about a 2 to 3% increase in our sales tax collections year over year,” said Holtmann. “The past two years, we’ve been in excess of 10% each year.”

Holtmann said the need to increase the budget stems from inflation. Holtmann says they need more money to adjust for an increase in operational costs, including pay for city employees, such as police and office workers.

“About 62% of our new revenue is for pay plan improvements, to retain our employees,” said Holtmann. “Our employees are facing, you know, the same hardships that everyone else is, and we’re trying to make sure that we are able to provide comparable salaries so that we’re able to keep the talent that we develop here in the city.”

Another reason for the budget increase is it’s costing more to maintain city departments such as police and fire. Fuel costs more, as well as buying and repairing vehicles to keep operations running.

“We provided about at seven and a half percent increase in all our departments operating supplies,” said Holtmann. “We’ve had to continually add more money to their budgets to make sure that we can continue providing that level of service that people expect.”

If you’re interested in what’s going to be on the city budget for the next fiscal year, the city has made it easier than ever for you to see that, with their new budget transparency platform.

“This is part of our transparency effort to ensure that all citizens are aware of the financial decisions that we make on their behalf,” said Holtmann. “So I would encourage people to do that.”

If you want to look over the city budget, you can do so here. Monday will be the second time city council has reviewed the budget. Holtmann and other city officials are hoping to get it passed in order to have the budget ready for the start of the fiscal year July 1.

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