Moline Committee-of-the-Whole 2025-2027 Budget Work Session – November 18, 2024
Moline Committee-of-the-Whole 2025-2027 Budget Work Session – November 18, 2024
The Committee-of-the-Whole held a budget work session at the Moline Public Library to review the proposed 2025–2027 operating budgets. The agenda packet supplied with the transcript is dated Saturday, October 26, 2024, while the meeting metadata for this summary identifies the meeting date as November 18, 2024. No public comment or agenda questions were offered. Staff presented a balanced budget and recommended levies, fund allocations, and policy decisions; council members debated contingency spending, property tax levels, fire staffing, and capital maintenance.
Budget Overview and Property Tax
- Staff reported a balanced 2025 budget totaling $176,156,942 across 57 funds; the general fund is projected to end 2025 with about $12.6 million, a fund balance equal to 24.42% of operating expenditures and within the city's fund balance policy.
- Existing-property EAV increased by $72.6 million, about 7.9%; residential grew 8.3%, industrial 14.5%, and commercial 7.44%. New construction added roughly $1.4 million in taxable EAV, bringing total EAV growth to about 8.15%.
- Staff recommended lowering the property tax rate from $1.8009 to $1.7156, producing $16.82 million in levy revenue, a $496,245 increase (3.04%). Existing properties would see a 2.88% increase; new construction accounts for about 5% of the added taxes.
- The average residential property tax impact was projected at $21 per year; combined with previously adopted utility fee increases, the average monthly increase is $8.55, or $102.72 per year, with projected annual increases declining to $85 in 2026 and $57 in 2027.
- SSA #5's board recommended a $20,000 levy increase and a public hearing was scheduled for November 4.
Payments to Agencies and Contingency
- A proposal to automatically sweep unused council contingency into the special capital projects fund drew opposition from members who preferred case-by-case year-end decisions; no automatic sweep was approved, and the council expected to revisit it in December.
- A motion to increase Commission on Youth funding from $10,000 to $15,000 failed on a roll call, with only three votes in favor.
- The Historic Preservation Commission's $35,000 request was reduced to $3,000 for informational historic plaques; a motion to zero that amount failed, and the $3,000 was approved.
- River Action's $8,000 recurring allocation was approved after discussion of its riverfront programming and regional value.
- The council approved the payments-to-agencies package as amended, including Level Up program funding and continued regional partnership support.
Public Art, ARPA, and Special Funds
- Council approved an amendment restoring the Public Art Commission to a $75,000 base city allocation, with CIP funding in addition.
- ARPA funds remain 100% allocated; about $4.8 million is projected to be spent in 2025. Council approved the 2025–2026 ARPA allocation.
- The National Opioid Settlement Fund was accepted; projected revenue is about $85,000 through 2025, with no expenditures authorized yet, and staff will bring spending proposals later.
- The Special Events Fund and Rental Housing Fund were approved. The land bank received continued discussion; 2025 was described as the final general fund transfer year, and council members pressed for measurable results.
Capital Needs: Parking Ramps and Urban Forestry
- Council approved $300,000 for parking ramp maintenance after staff reported the city's ramps average 26 years old and need $4–5 million in deferred maintenance. Public safety concerns about delayed maintenance and longer-term parking-funding sustainability were raised.
- Council approved $100,000 for the tree bank and urban forestry program, based on the city's urban forestry management plan and the shift from ash tree removal to planting and tree care.
Library
- The library fund was approved. It includes a mobile outreach vehicle costing about $220,000 over two years. Sunday hours, which average 150–175 patrons per Sunday, remain funded.
Personnel and Fire Staffing
- The 2025 budget initially recommended no new full-time positions, with temporary overtime backfill in fire and public works. Fire staffing was the major unresolved item: the department has about 66–67 filled positions versus a target of 72–73, with rising call volume and retirements.
- The budget included roughly $220,000 for a temporary eight-hour power shift through voluntary overtime. After debate, the council voted to amend the personnel recommendation to hire six full-time firefighters and directed staff to return with a funding plan.
General Fund and Grocery Tax
- The general fund budget is up 5.1%; salaries and benefits are up 6.58%, while operating expenditures are nearly flat at about 1.28%.
- Council approved an amendment removing assumed 1% grocery tax revenue from 2026 and 2027. Staff estimated that loss would reduce the general fund balance by about two percentage points, to roughly 20% by the end of 2027, unless other revenue or cuts are identified.
- The general fund budget was approved as amended.
Other Funds and Debt
- Internal service funds reviewed included fleet, information technology, liability, facilities, and health funds. The fleet fund maintains 393 vehicles at an estimated $30.5 million replacement cost, plus another 63 enterprise vehicles worth about $10 million.
- Debt service drops significantly after 2029–2030, freeing about $1.4 million annually if no new debt is issued; those funds were discussed as a possible source for the future fire station or capital projects.
- Staff noted that a $450,000 request for parcel complexities involving only three units in a floodplain could not be funded; staff were asked to discuss locating the project elsewhere in the city.
Key Outcomes
- Approved 2025 property tax levy: $16,845,542.
- Approved SSA #5 levy: $132,475.
- Approved SSA #6 levy: $269,255.
- Approved payments to agencies as amended, including $3,000 for historic preservation and $8,000 for River Action; the Commission on Youth increase failed.
- Approved Public Art Commission amendment and amended motion; approved ARPA allocation.
- Approved $300,000 for parking ramps and $100,000 for tree bank and urban forestry.
- Approved Special Events Fund and Rental Housing Fund; accepted National Opioid Settlement Fund.
- Approved library fund and mobile outreach vehicle plan.
- Amended personnel recommendation to hire six full-time firefighters and return with a funding plan.
- Approved general fund as amended, with 1% grocery tax revenue removed in 2026–2027.
Meeting Transcript
Morning everyone. Morning. I'm calling supporter of our work session today, our council meeting at 8 a.m. here on my third. I don't believe we have any electronic attendance, correct? Um allegiance, please. Would you have another space of math? Yes, that's all you can do. Thanks. All right, do we have public comment this evening or morning? All right, and no questions on the agenda. Um packet that was played back your speed correctly. So we'll move right into our budget work session, starting with number one. I would make remarks for me because I'm gonna go first. Well, good morning, and you're waiting and uh hopefully uh this is budget work session where we'll record wrap up the budget discussions that started back in June. No, we never stop budgeting to your um effort and uh this year is no exception. Um budget fourth before we decided to be like all uh big interventions work now's budget uh last we can create capital improvement budget. Um so that being said, there's a couple areas we're top priority that I think that we need to focus on a uh go through it and lay those out for you have a wrap of our discussions uh we have things that agencies that well over the one dollars our agencies here involved uh two um recognizing final discussions and have improvement plan for next year and then uh question about trees and parts and recreation that that's has to be resolved. Property tax level most importantly for the very uh certainly not uh number that you're comfortable with and lastly is the issue by RMS and uh what we're going to do that uh which I say 15 year history goes back to 2008, so I had the finance department with euro's friends and that's where she probably spreadsheet for the back and get kind of identifies from our audits what was our standard plate for the fall reverse of 2008 similar to what we found there one with your uh deficit of 12 positions in the street department and that we replaced those six of those 12 never moved forward to replace all uh fire departments basically have it, so we went back and double checked and see the numbers in front of you. So we get a kind of a perspective and see what's happening with all volume over the website growing exponentially. There's reasons for that achievement, but uh what is it? Would they have that discussion now at this stage of the game um with the other archival much short? Thank you. So I would just want to start the day off uh much like I have every year, just reminding us that our our call from to this work is how to service and it's a service to our community to individuals within the community to the organization of the city staff as well. And uh while we might come with different solutions or different perspectives on how to manage that responsibility, I think that um if we keep those who are serving in mind uh and part, we'll find a way to um get to an agreement on um how to steward the budget um new resources that we need to be carefully look at every year, and I think this as we as we move toward not having our thoughts with our back pocket, right? For dollars, we were learning how much more difficult um it is to make some base decision, and so for the public sake, I know none of us take this one lightly, but I just want us to um continue in there that is uh keeping um the positive when everybody's coming to this work positive um rather than so thank you for your diligence in looking through these materials and for the staff for preparing us for so many weeks, it makes it a lot easier to go into this massive document to understand where we're out and see how the solutions. So thank you. With that, uh turn it over to you. Thank you, and hopefully, just start out by just giving a very brief review of what we said on the PowerPoint here. The budget as presented is balanced. Anybody's got anyone else issues? So we treat the budget we have to go to writing balance. The budget presents healthy fund balances and cash results across all the market funds, we have very conservative spending that the drivers put together in our operating rightness and selling planning, and lastly, it follows the plan and this council's sustainable creation. So just to kind of get started, I'm gonna just give you a very high level review on all of our fundings, and it is under the tab number four. I'm actually going to start on page two. I tried to put most of it on the agenda on the pages, but I didn't I don't know what it's got something. Thank you so much. And so, as you know, we reviewed on Athenians before, and within the books, or if we're gonna talk about two, there are many, many pages in your document. I'm gonna take you to a one-page summary with this highlight so that we can be on the on this page. You will see that the city currently has 57 funds, and each one of those funds we've saved as before. We have a balance sheet, and they're all separate lenses. So it is a huge inbound just to take the budget around to follow the left, and we sold the shape all the support that you've given us on the back. If we take a look down the last green line, you will see that we have an in fund balance, and this is the current 2025 budget that's presented at 176 million, 156,942. Um, the general fund we open to the process for the first line and a net end balance of 12 million six. And we talked about that the other night, it's an eight hundred million uh fund balance of the percentage operating at 24.42 percent, which is right in covered with our fund balance policy. The next group of funds that go down the road, we have 42 special revenue funds, and the first main grouping that you'll see here, we've got our library, our CBG COVID, strong communities, home repairs, lots of brands, and each of those grants are a separate fund that have to be reported for um for the state as well as our public fund. We're gonna get into that a little later this morning. Um we have the balances if you look at the first column, the projected fund balance, we'll see some negative balances, and then in that white one between the two blue columns, you'll kind of see property numbers, and that's where we do our advanced so that there is a fund that we anticipate have a negative fund balance by the end of the year. We have to advance funds and the general fund or another fund to make sure that it is in the line our government, our next uh group of funds. Well, then we've got our debt, so this is kind of pleased in there very small early again track particular funds.
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