This was a meeting of the Finance and Property Committee of the Whole to review the proposed Fiscal Year 2027 budget. The budget, as presented by Mayor Cahill, is balanced at $180.8 million in general fund revenues, with a 4.12% increase over FY26. The meeting featured presentations from Budget Analyst Jerry Perry, Mayor Mike Cahill, and Finance Director Brian Ailes, followed by extensive discussion among councilors on structural deficits, spending priorities, and potential revenue options.
Summary of their budget and then Mr. Ailes. And after each person, I will first give the subcommittee a chance to ask questions of each presenter, and then we'll open it up to other counselors at that time as we take the um the presenters in a row. So with that, Mr. Perry. We would welcome your presentation and your summary. And thank you. We all received um a memo which spells out a lot of what I presume Mr. Perry is going to say, and I hope we all had a chance to review that because it was very informative this year as a thank you, Madam Chairman, Chairwoman, and members of the committee, uh, as well as the rest of the city council. I come before you tonight for with my annual oral presentation on uh the FY27 budget as presented to you by Mayor Cahill. Um, is the chair correctly indicated. I forwarded to you a report of my thoughts and findings uh a couple days ago, so I hope you had an opportunity to look into it. Um, but if I may, madam chair, with your permission for the next several minutes, go over some of my findings, my thoughts and opinions, and uh we'll go from there. Um of my comments are gonna be sobering. It's not gonna be easy, not only uh certainly this year, which we you already know a little bit about, but uh when we build budgets, when budget building goes on, it's not just a one-year event, it's looking into the future as well. It's important that we understand that, and I'll comment about that near the tail end. I start off with good news though. The budget as presented by Mayor Cahill is in balance. Probably again, I say every year, it's the most important thing I do, and even though the mayor indicated was balanced, and certainly Mr. Ailes does, I concur with that assessment. Uh revenues match expenditures. Um the stress factors in this budget, as we've known, and we've talked that I've talked to you about for the last two years, involve collective bargaining, public education spending, the cost of trash, public safety, health insurance, and some other minor issues. The revenues uh projected by the mayor amount to 180 million, 884,417 of the general fund. Um it's 7,168,04 more than FY26, or a 4.12% increase. The levy limit increased by 4,835,589, or a 3.57% increase. We no longer have excess levy capacity that we enjoyed a few years ago, as that is now gone. The growth, we got lucky this year a little bit. The new growth is projected at 1.9 million. I really pushed back on Mr. Ailes on that one a little bit and even had conversations with the assessors' offices. Where we got lucky is they did a good job. We added close to a million dollars in um uh utility assessments that we gr uh were able to garner this year. That was uh a significant thing would be part of the levy going forward. But keep in mind the 1.9 million is an anomaly with new growth with traditionally around 1.2, and it's not something you should count on in future years. So this year was a good year, and it certainly helped tremendously to close the gap with regard to the budget. Our overlays at $500,000, uh a little bit higher than other years, as the council knows. Uh the city council approved some exemptions. I think it was for veterans and things of that nature. Uh so it means it's gonna be more costly for the taxpayers, which means the $500,000 would be necessary to be placed in the overlay, and I I deem that appropriate in nature, and I think it should cover the costs. The local aid version, the the mayor is using the House version. Chapter 90, uh, chapter 70, I'm sorry, is increased by 713,760 dollars, more than the current FY26 numbers. I did a careful review of local receipts, that's your motor vehicle exercise, rooms, meals, tax, things of that nature, is a long list of them. They are appropriate in nature. They did they're done in uh in a fiduciary responsible way, and I'm comfortable with the uh assessment that the mayor has provided to you. One of the new things we all excuse me. I saw the mayor do that with water in the past. Um of the new things we did get this year, which was a good thing, um, and that Mr. Ayles can talk a little bit more about it when we get into it. Uh we got 700,000 of utility credits. That also helped the budget quite a bit this year, too.