I'm gonna go ahead and call this uh special session of the Bloomington Common Council to order, seeing as we've got a quorum, and I think everybody else looks ready too.

Uh will the clerk please call the roll councilmember Flaherty Rev.

Here Rallo Pete Mount Smith here Sasberg here Daily here Zulik here Rosenbarger here thank you.

Um so this evening we have a special session related to final budget approval for things.

That's why we're here.

So starting with the agenda summation, first we're gonna hear a report from the committee of the whole a couple weeks ago.

Uh we had a committee of the whole discussion around these uh appropriation ordinances, um, and so we will hear from the chair of the committee of the whole, which was councilmember Zulik.

Uh next, we will have three items of legislation are appropriation ordinances for budget year 2026.

We will start with uh the civil city budget appropriation ordinance 2025-11.

Then we will do appropriation ordinance 2025-12 uh for Bloomington Transportation Corporation for 2026, and then appropriation ordinance 2025-13 adopting the budget for the uh water and wastewater utility departments for Bloomington again for 2026.

After those three pieces of legislation, we will have um a conversation about elected official salary discussion, uh, which we kind of started last week, and everybody was like, we need to talk about that more.

Any notes about council schedule, and then we will adjourn.

Um so launching right in.

The first thing is the report from the committee of the whole from a couple weeks ago, Councilmember Zulik.

Thank you.

The Committee of the Whole considered the three budget ordinances, appropriation ordinance 2025-11, appropriation ordinance 2025-12, and appropriation ordinance 2025-13 during the Committee of the Whole meeting on September 24th, 2025, and makes the following recommendations.

Number one, the Committee of the Whole recommends to the council the adoption of appropriation ordinance 2025-11.

Number two, the Committee of the Whole recommends to the Council the adoption of appropriation ordinance 2025-12.

And number three, the Committee of the Whole recommends to the council the adoption of appropriation ordinance 2025-13.

And that is the conclusion of my report.

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Councilmember Zulik.

Uh, does anybody have any questions uh for Councilmember Zulik about her report of the Committee of the Whole?

Great.

No questions.

Uh so we can go ahead and launch into our legislation for second readings.

I move that appropriation ordinance 2025-11 be introduced and read by the clerk by title and synopsis only.

Second.

All those in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

Thank you.

Will the clerk please read?

Appropriation ordinance 2025-11, an ordinance for appropriations and tax rates establishing the 2026 civil city budget for the city of Bloomington.

There's no synopsis.

Thank you so much.

I move that appropriation ordinance 2025-11 be adopted.

Second.

Do it.

11.

11.

Thank you.

Um, who is here to present this evening?

Could go ahead and introduce yourself and floor is yours.

Good evening, council.

Uh Jessica McClellan, City Controller.

I am here tonight to present for the final adoption the 2026 budget for the city of Bloomington.

The DLGF reviewed funds total 110 million one hundred and eighty-four thousand one hundred and eight in the non-DLGF reviewed funds equal fifty-two thousand nine hundred and sixty-eight or fifty-two million nine hundred and sixty-eight thousand four hundred and forty-nine for a total of sixty-five million one hundred and eight thousand seven hundred and twenty-nine dollars.

I have a little bit more information to share with you about the fund balance.

Um, when we first uh developed the budget and presented the fund balance in the uh budget book, we had uh estimated one uh 11 million dollar deficit between uh deficit spending and the general fund.

And after we made uh corrections to the general fund, that was reduced to a nine million dollar uh deficit spending in the general fund.

And the reasons for the reason for that change is um an uh increase in the revenue in the general fund from property taxes from $54 million to $55.6 million, and this is due to moving property taxes from the parks and rec fund to the general fund, and we moved property taxes out of the parks and rec fund because there was about 1.6 million in revenues, uh miscellaneous revenues in the parks and rec fund that we had not accounted for yet in New World, so we got up got that information, added that into New World, and we didn't need the property tax support in the parks and rec fund by about 1.6 million.

That increased the revenue in the general fund, thereby decreasing the deficit spending.

We also made changes to the fund to the spending in the general fund, um, a combination of decreases due to uh moving liability insurance and increases due to cola increases and increasing the amount that is going to the sanitation fund.

The net of that is an increase in spending of $86,000.

So there is a slight change that that was um no changes from the budget that was presented in the public hearing.

This is just a little bit more information for you about the deficit spending for next year, which is about $9 million, and that is purely from the revenues that we're receiving next year versus the spending that we have planned for next year.

And I'm gonna update you one more time about the planned um the plan cash balance in the general fund at the end of 2026 is 26,161,215.

So that 26 million is 40 percent of the operating budget.