The City Council held the third and final workshop for the 2026 budget, reviewing a $685 million proposed budget that remains balanced despite challenges such as rising healthcare costs, declining state revenues, and unexpected electricity cost increases. Staff presented high-level overviews of operating and capital funds, followed by council deliberation on specific allocations including public safety, utility projects, and programmatic changes. While a unanimous show of hands supported the overall budget proposal with the exception of unresolved items, the council deferred final decisions on the Mobile Crisis Intervention Team (MCIT) to a staff report and a vote on the elimination of the electric lawn equipment rebate.
Good evening and welcome to the third and final workshop to discuss the city's proposed 2026 budget. As a reminder, no final actions are being taken at this meeting, and it's only a workshop. Also, all the rules of city council still apply. Speakers are asked to present their comments in a respectful and courteous manner. Speakers should stay on topic and be cognizant of their words. Speakers are given three minutes to address the city council. And to help speakers stay within the three minute time frame, we have a timer on the side dias located to your right. The timer buzzes when it hits zero, and we will alert the speaker that their time is up. Mr. Krieger, do we have anybody signed up to speak in public forum? Uh yes, sir. We have one speaker signed up, uh, Marilyn Schweitzer. Okay, so my confusion was there's two sign-ups, one for the public forum and one for the budget button. So this is for the budget. Um, I have six points I hope you will consider this evening. I'm pleased only tier one of the undergrounding of overhead lines will be funded now. And I hope any consideration for tier two will involve first surveying affected property um owners regarding their their druthers. And thank you for agreeing to eliminate the sidewalk replacement cost share. I look forward to seeing the revised ordinance and hope it will eliminate the cost share for new sidewalks as well. Three funding allocations for all the food and beverage tax should be rethought, particularly the CICA grant program, CECA city obligations, and neighbor settlement. Far too much is spent without adequate oversight and public input. Please keep the CAP per cap calculation per municipal code as indicated in the alternative. For a city the size of Naperville that speaks so fondly of NCTV, it amazes me that NCTV can't fundraise for what would be an average of four dollars per household. If you do fund NCTV, please adjust other CECA grants, SICA obligations, and if you settlement down proportionately. So loosely, for example, staff's recommendation for a data center in an area designated as medium density residential in the 2022 comprehensive plan. This creates uncertainty and so's community and business owner and development mistrust. Fifth Avenue does not have the complications of RIO zoning, has far better divided identity and has received more public input than along I-88. If the city can't manage to successfully complete I Fifth Avenue, I can't imagine the city would be capable of transforming the I-88 corridor into its vision of a vibrant, walkable, mixed-use, live workplay environment. Meanwhile, please use the 2022 land use plan for planning and development along I-88 and create an I-88 project area on the city's website to invite public review. This should not just be an NDB project as it has been over the past year. Five, I want the Riverwalk 2031 plan to succeed, but I'm very concerned that the costs have doubled on so many projects since their initial estimates. This increase the increases the risk, and I encourage staff to re-estimate the future projects using current construction costs and revised plans. Sixth, and finally, I'm extremely disappointed that the revision of the city website is not planning to address deficiencies in the help center. The main website, along with this component, should serve the entire community, not just be streamlined to aid in development, as I suspect the term, quote, service delivery, unquote, is meant to mean in the proposal. Much could be done to improve community knowledge and understanding for our city government. Thank you very much. Thank you. Any more speakers? No, sir. That is a final speaker. All right, before I turn things over to the city manager to begin the presentation, just a reminder to everybody up here at the dais that there will be moments during this presentation just like the last ones, where there will be question slides. Um at that moment, when the slide comes up, that's your opportunity to push your cue button, and I will recognize each member in the order they push it. Mr. Krieger. All right, thank you, Mayor. Uh, this evening, uh, staff will present third and final workshop in the 2026 budget development process. This final review reflects months of preparation by our finance department, department directors, and many other staff members. These efforts have led to great dialogue with you through the first two workshops, and we appreciate the questions asked thus far and encourage you to keep asking questions this evening. There we go. All right, uh tonight we'll focus on a high-level overview of the 2026 operating and capital budgets.