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.

Between tonight's discussion and the past two workshops, staff will explain the reasoning behind nearly 90 percent of the 685 million dollar budget.

We'll review how we put together the budget proposal, what those efforts resulted in, and how it impacts the city as an organization and community.

As we mentioned previously previously, at the onset of the 2026 budget season, we were prepared for a challenging process.

We faced the looming grocery tax issue as well as rising personnel and health care costs.

And in the middle of budget season, we were challenged with a few more curveballs.

These included higher than anticipated health insurance cost increases and declining state-shared revenues.

However, in the end, we're able to solve these planned and unplanned issues, which resulted in a balanced general fund budget.

Throughout these workshops, you've heard us mention future challenges the city faces based on current trends.

These include maintaining revenue diversification as our society and technology evolve and legacy revenue sources decline, prioritizing infrastructure improvements based on available dollars and staff capacity, and rising personnel expenses driven mostly by significantly higher health care insurance costs.

These challenges will put stress on future budgets to sustain service delivery and infrastructure investment, which is why the city held the line when developing next year's budget.

During the development process to balance the budget, staff right-sized operating and capital expenses based on available dollars and staff's capacity to achieve work within a given time frame.

These efforts achieved nearly 25 million dollars in total budget cuts.

In workshop number one, we discussed how we reduced capital across all departments by nearly 23.7 million dollars.

Most notably, this included deferring almost 15 million dollars in electric and six million dollars in TED projects to future years.

On the operating side, staff evaluated budget requests against actual spending patterns and reexamined some of our budgetary assumptions.

As a result, services and supplies in the general fund were reduced by nearly 1.7 million dollars, which helped balance the general fund budget.

These cost-saving efforts ensured that the 2026 budget reflects a strategic approach to city spending.

Since most of our budget balancing efforts focused on the capital side, we want to take a moment to recap the 2026 capital program, which totals 190 million dollars.

This is an increase of 6% over this year's program.

A common trend we've observed over the last couple of years is the need to invest in our water and electric utilities.

This trend continues with 63% of next year's program tied to utility improvements.

Waters ongoing investments in Springbrook and its water main and lead service line replacements, along with other capital work, makes up 47% of the total CIP.

Improvements across the electric utility account for 16% of plan capital investment.

There's a strong emphasis on replacing end-of-life assets with major investments directed towards substation infrastructure, especially the tollway substation.

The remaining 37% of the CIP includes technology and facility improvements, vehicle replacements, stormwater system upgrades, river walk investments, and significant transportation projects.

These include the projects you'll see noted on this screen.

Before we move into uh our funds overview, are there any questions?

Councilman Oldvar.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, question about the toy substation.

Does that uh project have anything to do with potential future usage of um energy in that area?

Uh can you uh describe maybe the connection between that and any future development north of I88?

Director Groth.

Certainly.

Brian Growth Electric Utility Director.

Um that project is specifically designed to increase the reliability at tollway substation.

And if if the question is more specifically around data centers or anything like that, um, the capacity we have out there is the capacity we have out there.

There's some inefficiencies and some design choices at that substation that could be improved.

For example, switch gear and 34,000 volt buses outside right now.

We're moving that inside to be more reliable.

So the upgrades at tollway substation are for reliability of existing infrastructure.

Okay, if I could ask a follow-up mayor.

Go ahead.

Okay, so just to clarify essentially that all the upgrades that are happening right now would have happened, sort of regardless of what uh future development might be.

Exactly.

All of the upgrades that are happening right now are directly related to several outages we had a few years ago where snow and ice built up on the substation bus that's outside, caused flashovers and long duration outages.

Thank you, Mayor.

Thank you, Mr.

Grahl.

That also included the outage a couple of weeks ago.

That's correct.

That was uh an outdoor cable failure, exactly.

No other questions, Mr.

Krieger.

Go ahead.

All right, I'd like to turn things now over to uh Deputy Finance Director Tracy Morocco.

Thanks, Doug.

Included on this slide are revenues and expenditure totals for our maintenance and operating funds, along with the resulting estimated cash balances at the beginning and end of the year.

The general fund is structurally balanced, and we anticipate a minor increase in the total cash balance by the end of 2026, assuming all revenues and expenditures meet expectations.

As a reminder, we reviewed the general fund budget in our second workshop.

Other funds in this area, such as the commuter parking, electric and water utility funds show some imbalances largely related to capital spending, which is a common and acceptable practice.

We'll move on to these funds next.

Revenues in the electric utility fund are anticipated at just under 178 million dollars.

Electric charges are planned to increase by around 7.8 million or 5% compared to this year's budget.

This increase is driven by the approved rate increases set in the 2024 rate study.

Other revenues include installation and service fees, investment income, and grants.

This set of revenues is anticipated to increase by nearly 26% or roughly 1.1 million dollars.

The increase is largely tied to a federal Department of Energy grant, which was secured to help fund a portion of electric's distributed energy management system.

This grant included $715,000 in 2026.

However, it was recently canceled by the DOE.

Staff is currently in the process of appealing this cancellation.

Bond issuances are planned at 10 million dollars in 2026.

As we mentioned during the first workshop, the 2024 rate study called for 17.5 million dollars of new debt to be issued between 2025 and 2026.

The initial rate study assumed $7.5 million would be needed in 2025, and additional 10 million dollars would be needed in 2026.

The city ended up issuing 10 million dollars of new debt in 25 and plans to issue another 10 million dollars in 26 to continue supporting capital infrastructure investments.

Expenses in the electric utility fund total 177.3 million dollars.

This represents a year-over-year increase of 10.5 million dollars or 6.3%.

The most notable increase is purchased electricity.

Over the last few years, the cost of purchasing electricity has exceeded the projections outlined in the rate study.

The 2026 budget moved away from the purchase power cost outlined in the rate study and budgeted more in line with actual expenses.

As a result, the budget the budget for purchase electricity has increased by roughly 10.6 million dollars or about 10 and a half percent.

However, this is in line with the actual amount being spent in 2025.

It's important to note here that the 2026 budget assumes no changes related to ongoing discussions on the IMEA contract or any changes to the current user mix within the utility.

Increases are seen in other areas of the operating budget with an overall change of 7.1% or an increase of 2.4 million dollars.

Most of these increases are tied to personnel expenses with salaries and benefits increasing almost 12%.

However, there are some slight increases across purchase services as well, largely related to the substation maintenance and contracted engineering support.

Overall operating expense increases are minimized due to debt service payments declining by nearly 300,000.

This reduction is driven by the final payment of the 2012 debt series being made in 2025.

Capital expenses total just under 28 million dollars and represent a decrease of 2.5 million from the 2025 budget.

While the capital needs of the utility continue to expand, staff must work within the financial resources available to support this work.

Staff continues to prioritize investments and end-of-life assets to ensure the utility continues to provide a high level of service.

Next is the water and wastewater fund.

The 2026 budget estimates 151.2 million dollars in overall fund revenue.

This represents a 28 million dollar or 22.7% increase.

This increase also accounts for minor growth in water sales from new residential and commercial developments.

Wastewater charges are also expected to increase by 2.6 million dollars in conjunction with sales volume estimates and the 10% increase approved in the rate study.

Also aligned with the rate study is an estimated bond issuance of 45 million dollars in 2026 to fund ongoing capital investments at Springbrook.

Finally, of note here is that other revenues are anticipated increased slightly.

Several Springbrook projects being worked on next year are among those necessary to meet the IEPA's mandated phosphorus discharge limits, a condition of Springbrook's operating permit.

These projects will be expensed to the water utilities fund and will be supported by the phosphorus fund through an interfund transfer.

Expenses in the water and wastewater fund total 162.2 million for 2026.

This represents an overall increase of 23.3 million or 9.8% from the 2025 budget.

Purchase water costs are projected to increase by 2.4% based on forecasted sales volume and the DuPage Water Commission's rate increase, which is represented as a direct pass through on customer bills.

As the DuPage Water Commission purchases its water from the city of Chicago, costs associated with the rate increases are passed on to us.

Operating expenses of 33.3 million represent a 2.4 million dollar or seven per 7.7% increase.

This is primarily driven by personnel costs, including salaries and benefits growing by 1.3 million or 8.6%, and maintenance services related to wastewater charges, sorry, to wastewater infrastructure increasing 1.2 million or 37.4%.

Capital expenses account for the largest increase in this area, which rose by 20.3 million or 27.2%.

Approximately $15 million of this increase represents further work on Springbrook's South Plant capacity upgrades and other related work.

Other major capital investments in the fund cover wastewater infrastructure work, lead service line replacements, and water main replacements.

Any questions on the utilities before we move on?

Council McKelly.

Thank you, Mayor.

If you could uh go back to slide number nine on electric fund expenses.

Um I think what I heard you say was that for 2025, our current year, that the actual purchase electricity cost was approximately 10% more than budgeted, and I'm wondering if you can just provide some context as to why why that is what's driving that unexpected increase.

Certainly, Brian Growth Electric Utility Director.

I believe that that was directly related to purchasing more electricity.

Costs are a little bit higher, but we are also purchasing more electricity this year.

Thank you.

Councilman White.

Uh yeah, similar question.

So we're purchasing more.

The demands driving that.

That's correct.

Uh, this is probably the first year we have not seen a decline in electric consumption and project that by the end of the year we will sell more electrons this year than last year.

Okay, I recall um last year, maybe even the year before that, that um we had overestimated the amount of electricity that was going to be needed to power the city.

Uh, primarily it's sound like because people were being much more um responsible and accountable for the for the no they're gonna practicing the things that we've been wanting them to practice, and as a result, we weren't purchasing as much because the demand had kind of gone down.

So yeah, my question is similar to the councilman Kelly's uh all of a sudden it's seems like a pretty big increase.

Uh, has something changed?

Uh if you can explain that, I was it wasn't quite clear to me.

I wouldn't say that something drastic has changed.

Um, it's in the you know, single digits increase.

Uh, we have definitely seen an inflection point, and we are starting to increase.

Some could attribute it to extremely hot summer that went pretty late into September and even early October.

So an electric utility perspective, that's you know, we we sell the electrons that people want, so thank you.

No more questions from here.

All right, thank you.

All right, now we'll begin to cover our capital and debt service funds, which are responsible for our investment in assets such as streets, municipal facilities, major technology, and vehicle replacements.

The capital projects fund is the major budgetary fund in this category, serving as the main funding source for general government capital investments or investments outside the electric and water utilities.

The city will use a combination of existing cash balance, home rill sales tax revenues, and capital capital grants and government contributions to fund most capital projects in 2026.

Other major funds include the motor fuel tax and road and bridge funds, which support annual road maintenance, the phosphorus fund, which will support Springbrook improvements, and the downtown parking fund, which supports future parking garage expansion and long-term maintenance of existing garages.

Capital Projects Fund revenues are budgeted at 42.1 million, a decrease of 19.5% compared to the 2025 budget.

The key reason for this decrease is that no bonds are planned to be issued for the fund next year compared to the 15 million budgeted for 2025.

Main revenue sources include 23 million in home rill sales tax and a one-time transfer of almost $2 million from the E911 fund to support the final expenses related to the public safety radio upgrades.

Additionally, capital grants and government contributions total totaling 14.8 million will support projects such as the North Aurora Underpass.

As we noted in the Capital Workshop, the North Aurora Road Project is a great example of intergovernmental cooperation.

Money from entities such as the Illinois Department of Transportation, the Illinois Commerce Commission, the City of Aurora, and Neighborville Township will help fund the project.

Other grant funded projects for 2026 include fire training center improvements and riverwalk expansion projects.

Expenses in the Capital Projects Fund total $55.1 million in 2026, a decrease of 9.6% compared to the 2025 budget.

The decrease is largely attributed to the cyclical nature of capital projects.

Major work on several projects, such as the public safety radio upgrades and Eagle Street Gateway was either completed or saw notable progress in 2025.

Despite lower capital outlay costs, several projects are being carried forward into next year and will require increased levels of investment, most notably the North Aurora Road Project.

Continued progress on the underpass will result in additional $8.75 million in expenditures.

Although architect and engineering services decline by almost $1 million, design efforts remain active for multiple projects, including upcoming phases of the downtown streetscape and various roadway and area improvements citywide.

On this next slide, we highlight the revenues for both the motor fuel tax and road and bridge fund.

Between both funds, revenues for 2026 totaled 10.8 million dollars, which is nearly flat to this year.

The recent trend of moderating to declining revenues across these funds continues into next year.

Total state shared taxes, which includes motor fuel tax revenue, personal property replacement tax revenue, and transportation renewal funds does see a minor increase of about 180,000 or 2.5%.

Although both MFT and PPRT revenues are anticipated to decline, transportation renewal funds help offset this decline because of inflationary increases built into the funding source.

Staff is also tracking recent legislation that would redirect MFT revenues to support public transit operations.

At this point, it is not clear if that will result in any reduction to municipal shared revenues.

In the Road and Bridge Fund, local gas tax revenues are expected to total 2.4 million dollars.

This represents a decrease of 2.3% or nearly $60,000.

We expect this revenue source to decin to continue declining as overall gas consumption continues its downward trend.

Expenditures between the MFT and Road and Bridge funds total $9.7 million.

In large part, these two funds act as the primary funding source for the annual street maintenance improvement program.

In 2026, these funds account for $8.7 million of the $12 million program.

That program includes annual resurfacing, patching and crack filling of city streets, plus some associated curb and sidewalk replacement.

The MFT fund will support $6.5 million, while the road and bridge fund will accommodate an additional $2.2 million.

While the numbers presented on this slide are accurate to where the budget currently stands, staff plans to increase the MFT budget by $1 million with an offsetting reduction to the Capital Projects Fund.

This will allow the city to allocate rebuild Illinois funds towards a portion of the North Aurora Road underpass project.

While this does not change the overall value of the 2026 proposed budget, it will be reflected in the final budget that council will be asked to approve on December 2nd.

And at this point, we can pause to answer any other questions.

You talked about the motor fuel tax.

And more or less gas consumption is down, which is obviously affecting that.

You need to, I know you were monitoring this and said we were going to look into it, but where are we with that as far as getting our share, whatever that might be, the fair share of what we should be receiving back from the EV registration, which is more or less as doubled.

That's their remedy to uh fix the fact that we uh EV drivers don't buy gasoline.

Mr.

Krieger.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

Um, and thank you for the question.

Um it is one of our legislative initiatives.

Uh it is a problem.

Um is a problem that uh some other states have already solved, and we um uh we are experiencing it uh at a more significant at a more significant impact than most communities just because of our high EV adoption rate here.

Um so we will continue to work with Springfield uh to lobby for a um a fix, whether that's gonna be you know a mileage or if it's gonna be an honor system.

Um, but you are correct.

Uh the system needs to be fixed and is only going to get worse unless they make the change.

Yeah, well, what's our uh position if you can even discuss that with them?

Is it a 40%, 50% of what we're doing?

You know, we don't um we don't have a specific formula in mind for them to solve it.

Uh what we what we would like to do is get as close as they could come to something that would be kind of like a make hole.

So you know what?

If if your Tesla were a gas vehicle, how much would that how much would you be spending with average mileage and try to get those close?

Um, you know, the uh the the for normal drivers um it's not significant, but um for rideshare drivers with electric vehicles and put who put on you know forty fifty thousand a year, um, it is um it is a big deal, so it is something that we're pushing to get fixed.

Okay, thank you.

Theoretically, we might be trading some dollars if we're losing on the motor the local motor fuel tax piece that we collect on those numbers, and we're picking up on the electric sales side.

I mean, it could be attributable.

It's just right now hypothetical.

Councilman Gibson.

Uh thank you, Mayor.

I've got a question on slide 14.

Um, I just want to make sure I understand that first line under the grid.

Capital project revenue increased by 4.83 million, which is 12.9, but right below that it says home real sales tax actually increased by 21%.

So is the difference just significantly less outside capital grants and other government bodies.

Yeah, so that line uh encompasses both the home rule sales tax and those other capital grants and government contributions.

So in aggregate, uh the increase was 12.9.

I think uh the capital grant and government contribution line was fairly static to last year because frankly, we thought North Roar Road was going to start last year, so a lot of the same numbers carried forward year over year.

Uh the home rule sales tax increase uh looks significant.

Uh, what I'd like to share there is those numbers are sort of in line with what we're seeing right now.

If you remember, we talked a lot about how the state is continuing to change the uh online sales tax situation so that retailers out of state are you know paying appropriate sales taxes that are based on the destination products are sold.

So we've started seeing significantly higher both state sales tax and home real sales tax receipts this year.

Uh however, the offset to that is our local use tax in the general fund, which used to be 2021-2022 is probably a six million dollar revenue, is gonna go down to about a one and a half to two million dollar revenue next year.

So there's some some offsets in the sales tax picture, and that's a part of it that you're seeing here.

Okay, but this 21.0%, which is in part due to online sales, it's at the 0.75 consistent home rule sales tax that we've had.

Correct.

Correct.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

Ready for special funds.

Okay, I'm gonna take over here.

Uh, so this is the last group of funds in our budget that we're going to look at tonight.

Um, most of these funds are smaller and serve a very specific purpose within our budget.

Uh some of the larger of the special funds include the Napoleon Public Library and Neighbor Settlement, uh, the food and beverage fund, and the downtown uh parking maintenance fund.

These funds are typically balanced and see more stable revenues and expenses from year to year.

In some limited circumstances, uh, we may intentionally spend on existing reserves accumulated in prior years.

However, these funds do not have reserve requirements like our general fund or utility funds do.

Um, as a reminder, we reviewed the library and neighbor settlement funds our last workshop, so we'll not we will not go over them again tonight.

Uh so the one fund that we are going to focus on is the food and beverage fund uh specifically, which is among one of the more significant special funds that we've yet to review in detail.

Revenues are anticipated to grow uh by about a hundred thousand dollars or one point four percent.

This is primarily driven by the food and beverage tax, um, and that is projected to grow by about 1.6 over the amount budgeted this year.

That estimate is based on actual tax amounts collected year to date as well as inflation and some assumptions for growth in new businesses.

Um, admittedly, this forecast is is quite conservative because it was generated in July when revenues were coming in a little bit weaker than than we'd normally see.

Uh we have seen some recovery in those revenues in recent months, and we'll continue to monitor this revenue, but I anticipate that that 1.6% uh will be um again very conservative based on numbers we've seen in the past month or two.

Uh notably the food and beverage tax that we see here only includes the one percent citywide food and beverage tax.

The downtown food and beverage tax dollars are accounted for in the downtown parking fund, and those specifically fund construction and maintenance related to the downtown parking garages.

Uh the other minor revenues that you see on the table are generated from late payment fees uh on tax collections and also uh bank and investment interest.

Expenses in the food and beverage fund are also projected to increase in line with revenues for next year.

The food and beverage fund allocation can be seen uh in the table on the right-hand side of the slide.

Uh the allocations are listed in the order of distribution spelled out in the municipal code.

The fund serves as the primary funding source for the special events and community arts program or SICA.

Currently, as presented in the prior budget workshop, that allocation is 2.51 million dollars next year.

Uh, we'll continue with the discussion on the C cap later in the presentation.

Other major expenses include contributions to the public safety pension funds.

Each fund will receive an estimated $874,000 in 2026.

Um, some additional expenses include the $750,000 in social service grant funding, and the remaining revenue is transfers out of this fund for other purposes.

There's two items in that category.

Uh, first, in 2024, we programmed an annual transfer to the neighbor settlement fund.

The intent of that was to offset increases in the property tax levy, and then the remaining balance of food and beverage taxes uh are annual revenues that are transferred to the debt service fund, and those dollars abate current or future year property taxes.

Any questions on that before I move on?

No questions.

Okay.

So as we work through the budget development process each year, one of the major considerations is the annual property tax levy.

While many people consider the city's annual property tax levy to be a major funding component in our budget, the reality is that it represents a relatively small funding source at just 9% of the annual budget.

On this slide, we compare the 2024 final property tax extension for the taxes payable in 2025 with the 2025 levy request, which is for taxes payable in 2026.

The total 2025 property tax levy request totals 59.7 million dollars.

This is an increase of 1.5% compared to the final 2024 levy amount of $58.8 million.

When comparing the 2024 levy to the 2025 levy, the most notable change is the shift towards city services and away from debt obligations.

As I mentioned at the second budget workshop, as our debt obligations have declined over time, the city has been able to ensure that core city services receive appropriate support from the tax levy, thereby maintaining a balanced mix of revenues that provide long-term stability in our core city services.

City pension obligations also make up another significant portion of the tax levy.

This includes police, fire, and IMRF pensions in the general fund.

Property taxes serve as the primary funding source for both Naper Settlement and the Naperville Public Library.

As a result, we see the Napro's neighbor settlements portion of the property tax levy will increase by 2.5%, while the library's portion will increase by 3.7%.

Now we'll look at what this tax levy request means for the property tax rate.

On the left hand side of this slide, you see one of the components used to determine the city's property tax rate.

The equalized assessed value or EAV represents the total value of properties across the entire city.

Next year we estimate that number will grow to more than 10.8 billion dollars.

That amount assumes a 10% growth in EAV over the prior year's assessment.

It includes appreciation of existing properties and new construction within the city.

It's important to point out that property valuations are determined by township assessors and not by the city of Naperville.

So this is a component of the annual property tax rate that the city does not necessarily control.

When you take the property tax levy request and apply it across the entire city's valuation, the result is the property tax rate.

Here we see that the estimated 2025 property tax rate is 0.5506, representing the lowest rate since the late 1960s.

Although the property tax rate is decreasing, it's important to note that this does not mean the amount we levy is decreasing.

Given the unusual increases seen in property valuations in recent years, the EAV has skyrocketed.

This means that if the city were to capture full EAV growth, residents would experience significant increases on their property tax bills.

However, we've ensured that we're not levying more than necessary and only levying what is needed to meet our required obligations for next year.

In the future, as EAV levels out, we would expect to see property tax rate remain more consistent year after year.

So what does all that mean for the average property taxpayer in the city of Naperville?

Using the most recent median home value published by the U.S.

Census Bureau, we calculated the estimated city portion of a 2026 property tax bill would be 1,019 dollars.

This is based on a median home value of $579,000.

This means the city's portion of the 2026 property tax bill would be about $84 less than if you applied last year's tax rate to that same property.

However, this assumes that all other factors are equal.

Again, it's virtually impossible to predict what each homeowner will experience on their property tax bill, as valuation is the primary factor in determining your individual bill.

Changes in valuation are the result of properties being bought and sold, home improvements, and many other factors.

Again, it's important to point out that the city establishes the tax levy only, and individual property values are set by the township assessor.

The chart on the slide shows more generally the impact the declining property tax rate has had on tax bills.

As you can see, the tax paid per 100,000 of assessed value has declined significantly in the past 10 years from approximately $680 in 2017 to $450 in 2025.

Once again, that does not imply that property tax bills have decreased by that same amount.

As most properties have seen an appreciation in value over that time frame that's been relatively significant.

Here we see a dollar bill broken down proportionally into the various taxing districts that make up the total property tax bill.

The representation that you see here uses a property that's located in DuPage County, School District 203, and Lyle Township.

As you can see, the city's portion of the tax bill is less than 10%.

The breakout on the right shows the various components of our 9.8% portion of the tax bill.

That breakdown mirrors the levy requests we talked about previously.

More than 75% of the bill goes to the school district, and the remaining portions go to the park district, the county, and other smaller districts, such as the township, community college, and forest preserve districts.

This year we also included a dollar bill breakdown representing a property in Will County, which includes School District 204 in Wheatland Township.

Like to note here that the city's share of the tax bill remains remains consistently low and comprises an even smaller portion of the bill at 9.1%.

The school district continues to make up the largest portion of the tax bill, although it sure is also slightly less than our prior example.

The major difference between our DuPage and Will County examples is the county uh tax rate, Will County uh levies uh more taxes on a percentage basis than DuPage County does.

So that is the primary difference between the two slides.

Any questions on the property tax section?

No questions.

All right, I'm going to turn it over to Doug.

All right.

Uh thanks, Ray.

Um, before we move into the promised discussion on the SECA cap, uh, we'd like to take a moment to recap the direction you provided to us throughout the past two workshops.

The direction you provided around electric undergrounding, the sidewalk replacement cost share program, and NCTB 17 help us finalize the budget before we bring it back to next month.

Now we'll pick up where we left off at the last workshop with the SECA cap.

As a reminder, the SECA cap's current calculation per the municipal code increases the cap by the lesser of 2% or the rate of inflation.

Uh as reflected in the 2026 budget, which is center column.

The cap currently um reflects a revised calc.

Uh in order to catch up with actual inflation, the 2026 cap was calculated with the prior five years of inflation, which provides us with a cap of 2.5 million dollars.

Uh my apologies.

The first was uh uh per code, uh middle column was what was presented uh last budget workshop.

Um the uh alternative option listed on the right uh shows a revised cap that um allows funding for 200,000 dollars of additional funding for NCTV.

Based on the direction from the second budget workshop, we've included uh an alternative option uh which reduces the SECA budget to 2.38.

Uh simply put this alternative option keeps the cap calculation is outlined in the municipal code at two percent of the rate of inflation, whichever is less, um, and simply adds the in the additional two hundred thousand dollars for NCTB 17's ongoing support.

Um we've had a very productive set of budget workshops this year throughout the process uh during both during as well as after the workshops.

You've expressed a variety of questions uh to me as well as to staff.

We want to ensure that council has the opportunity to discuss these further, and staff receives direction prior to finalizing the budget.

Um, at this time, mayor, I'd like to ask if we could take a straw poll on each of the items on the screen.

I think we got some questions first, Councilman Alzhar.

Um thank you, Mayor.

Uh I wanted to ask Mr.

Kreer actually.

There's an item that I'd um reached out to you about earlier today.

Would it be sort of after we tackle these few items?

That uh I I see that squarely in kind of like the fourth box down here uh for the any remaining discussion points.

So um, and that relates to the uh mobile crisis intervention.

Perfect.

And uh just as what point of clarification on the first one.

Um, I know my intent was to do the uh the highest amount for SECA.

The the wording that that I would do to vote for that would be the quote unquote proposed revision uh where we're catching up with inflation, is that how I would vote for that?

That is correct.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, no other questions.

Council uh Councilman White.

Yeah, and just one quick on the for NCTV.

Um that was included in that proposal the proposed one, correct?

Uh yes, that the additional two hundred thousand for NCTV 17 is included uh under both the proposed revision as well as the alternative option.

Okay, thank you.

Mr.

Krieger, could you explain on the proposed revision what steps would take place to change the ordinance and the other things that would come with this?

Uh sure, because um the uh use of uh or where the food and beverage tax goes to uh has been codified, um both the proposed revision as well as alternative option uh will require us to uh adjust the municipal code uh under the proposed revision.

Um we would need to change uh both uh the amount of funding that goes to NCTB uh as well as kind of the inflation adjustment under the alternative option, that code change would only um change for the additional two hundred thousand dollars that goes to NCTV 17.

Okay, council of professional staff is looking for a show of hands to give them an indication of where we want to go on the CECA fund cap revision.

Um that slide is back up on the screen for you to take a look at.

Um there's the alternative option, which keeps things the same as far as the current ordinance that's in place for funding CECA, and then there's the proposed revision.

So I think the easiest way to do this would take a show of hands on the alternative option first, and then if there's not sufficient support for that, then I guess we have our answer.

I'm sorry, councilman can you clear up there we go.

Gotcha.

Everybody clear on what we're looking at.

All right, so those in favor of the alternative option, please signify by raising your hand.

We have three.

And just so we have it on record.

Those in favor of the proposed revision signify by raising your hand.

One, two, three, six, six.

All right.

Drones as first responders.

Do you support the drone as first responder program?

That was the 150,000 dollar request from the police department.

That will be an ongoing commitment from the council, and that's for the initial phase of the DFR program.

Those in favor signify by raising your hand.

Opposed?

Okay.

Next item, special area study.

This is the 150,000 dollar commitment to be budgeted for the city staff to look at either the Fifth Avenue project or the I-88 corridor study.

That would just be a placeholder for the 150,000 dollars in the budget, and it's my understanding we would then hear about the potential options for those decisions in the first quarter of 2026.

So this is just to hold the 150,000 for one or the other.

We're not choosing which one tonight.

Is that accurate, Mr.

Krieger?

That is correct.

Okay, so those in favor of holding 100.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Councilwoman Gibson.

Uh thank you.

I just had some clarifying questions for staff.

Um, I know I put some in the QA.

Uh, but the 150, is it for a outside consultant or project per se?

It is, and um Director Loudon's probably best positioned to talk about kind of the differences between the two.

Director Loudon?

Thank you.

Correct.

The 150,000 is just a placeholder.

Um we haven't gone as far as um actually outlining the specific scope for each study, so um, you know, the actual amount would be determined.

Um we would be able to provide some additional details as far as what the scope will be for each study as we get closer to asking for a decision on direction.

So um that amount is not um related to the staff time.

So the staff um resources would just be within our existing staff um within the TED department.

Okay, and I I have a follow-up, Mayor.

Go ahead.

So for the current staff time that's being devoted to each of the two projects.

I know we have ongoing discussions about I-88, and then we also did the Fifth Avenue study.

Do we um foresee both of those buckets still getting the same amount of staff time, or if council chooses one, would then the you know, non-chosen also kind of get the re um reallocation of the staff hours.

Um so staff um city staff from the planning team generally can um they generally have room within the workload every year for um special for one special project, whether um you know, those are text amendments that may be requested or other projects, like when we did the comprehensive land use update, um, the affordable housing incentive program work, things like that.

So in this case, uh for the recent projects.

So we we actually spent very very minimal amount of staff time on the I-88 corridor thus far, it's really just been in support of what the Napleville Development Partnership has been doing.

So that was run by their team with a consultant.

So our staff did attend stakeholder work groups and things like that, but uh we really haven't dedicated a lot of staff time to that thus far.

The next step would require a lot of staff time if we were to move forward because it would be a planning study, which needs to be led by city staff with a consultant.

Um similarly with Fifth Avenue, um, we've spent more time on that in the past year, you know, mainly because the work with um the Urban Land Institute did require um more time with city staff to help them.

Well, we we wrote up the application and and brought that forward for city council input.

Um, and then once we were successful at being selected, there was more work involved in working with ULI to get that scheduled and coordinated and things like that.

So, I mean, yes, if we are dedicating time towards one of these studies, um, that is where the focus of the planning teams, you know, allotted time and resources for you special projects would be dedicated to.

Okay, great.

Thank you.

That's helpful.

Council Holzar.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh it's kind of a follow-up question to councilwoman Councilwoman Gibson.

Um with regard to I-88, um, you know, there's an excellent study that um Naple Development Partnership put out.

I don't know how many pages are in it, but I mean I I looked at it and off the top of my head I'm guessing 75 pages of pretty thoroughly detailed researched um study by an outside consultant, which um I don't know the cost of, but but my guess is it was it was pretty comprehensive.

Um it strikes me that there's close to policy proposals in there, um, most notably the idea of the creation of an opportunity zone north of I-88 with some changes to the zoning code.

Um so I guess one of the questions I have is if if we actually would have to go through the step of spending 150,000 for an additional study there, or if we could start taking actions potentially based on the study that already exists.

Um so I do think it would be important to take the next step.

The um the the corridor report that came out is an economic development strategy, and um, and I think I did see Monica's here.

So she, if if there's more detailed questions about that, I may defer to her, but that did identify six strategies, and just within one of those would be this land use study.

There's a there's a lot of strategies to be worked on.

Um I do think that what was provided at would need to be applied through a land use study to determine if there is zoning changes that we would need to make.

I mean, we do currently see as a staff right now that there is a disconnect between um what zoning permits in that area and what the development requests are that we're seeing come in.

There are a lot of things that people that the market is potentially showing has potential there that that our zoning currently doesn't support.

So we I mean we do see that on the staff side when we are getting um inquiries from potential developers and property owners in that area.

So um I would say that what is in that strategy report does not give us that guidance.

So that's why we would definitely be supportive of moving on the next step.

Thank you, Mayor.

And if I could follow up on that, um if you could be specific about the the usages that are um not necessarily compatible with the existing zoning, is the big one data centers?

I mean, what's what's what are you running into?

That's that's kind of an issue.

Um no, I no, I wouldn't actually say it's it's uh the data centers.

Um one of the things that we hear a lot about is residential.

Say that again, residential.

Okay.

Um that's very helpful.

Thank you, Mayor.

Okay, so we're looking for a show of hands if the council is in favor of adding the 150,000 dollar allocation for a special area study, and that location would be determined by council in the first quarter of 26.

All right, you got your answer there.

Councilman House are did you still have something else?

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

All right, I'm gonna turn to Chief Aries.

And uh Chief, I was wondering if you could give us a briefing of um what a crisis response team is, the sort of duties they do, um, just kind of an overview of what what the program is, like a 40,000 foot view of of what it is.

I have a timer.

Just throw some at me.

So currently we run a basic version of a mobile crisis intervention team, which consists of um our patrol a patrol officer riding with a clinician um who's one of our civilian, either social workers, victim advocate, or um counselors.

They're doing this Monday through Friday.

So two last year we had proposed um a full-time mobile crisis intervention team unit, which would consist of one sergeant, five officers who would respond to the approximately 900 um crisis calls that we respond to from the mental health basis, not to include domestic issues that they assist with, child sex abuse cases, child abuse cases, elder abuse, et cetera.

Um lot of speaking points, give you some quick data.

Our mental health calls alone right now, um, if we don't have that, even if we have the car up and running with a beat officer, they average we average a hundred and three minutes per mental health call that we're on.

That's usually two officers and a sergeant minimum for these calls.

So not the best and most efficient way to handle that.

The reason I say that is one of the benefits that would come from this full-time unit would be, you know, we often hear, you know, we hear about speeding vehicles and other neighborhood issues, which are important.

The idea of freeing up, because the estimate is we'd get 60 to 65 percent of those 900 calls will be handled by this unit.

So not only would this be a unit with highly trained officers, because they would receive even more training than we currently put our folks through, which is the CIT 40 hour certification.

You're also getting a unit of people who are passionate about this topic.

Everybody gives a hundred percent when they're rolling as the mobile crisis car, but you're gonna get a different level of passion for someone from someone that truly wants to be in the space because we wouldn't be forcing people to be in this unit.

We have officers that want to be part of this.

So not only are you getting a better response, you're also freeing up those minimum of two beat officers per shift, though that 103 minutes that they're spending on these crisis calls where we're taking it slow and not forcing these issues to now handle community policing issues within their beat.

So I'm I'm giving you kind of two different benefits.

It's the expertise on the mental health calls, but then the freeing of our patrol officers for the speeding complaints that we all see, or the e-bike issues that we see.

These beat officers can handle those beat issues while these mobile crisis units handle the mental health calls in progress.

Um additionally, besides the fact that you're getting the expertise, recidivism is very high in this space.

So you're able, this unit will be able to develop a better rapport for those individuals in crisis, put them on a better plan, be familiar with um potential medications they're on, um, clinicians that they're seeing outside of our folks.

So they're handling I I hope this was the 40,000 foot view you were looking forward to describing, but they're handling the mental health crisis that our community and many communities around this country are dealing with to an even higher level than we're already providing to the Naperville community.

Sure.

And I have a few follow-up questions on this mayor.

Um what is the percentage of police calls like 911 calls that are mental health related ballpark?

So non-self-initiated, we go to about 36 to 40,000 calls a year, 900 of which are mental health related.

Now, again, there are many, these classes of mental health calls are reliant on us accurately auditing our own system and making sure they're I will tell you most domestics have a mental health component to them.

That's you know, domestic, whether it's trouble or violence, there's mental health involved with that, and those don't always get the mental health code associated with it.

Child abuse, sexual abuse, all those types of calls have a mental health component, though they may not be classed as mental health.

So 900 specifically out of that are just mental health related minimum.

All right, and you had mentioned that this would have been would be a full-time unit where right now you've got five-day week coverage for can you explain what that five-day week coverage is and what the difference is?

Can you explain what that five-day week coverage is and what the difference is?

Well, yeah, the clinicians currently work a Monday through Friday schedule.

And full disclosure right now, the data, because this won't be a 24-75 unit.

The data of our mental health calls does support Monday through Friday, right?

Friday right now, with the way that everything reads, and that would be our peak is between 11 in the morning to about nine at night is where you would see this unit spanning two different shifts to help day shift and night shift with these calls.

Um but it would still be Monday through Friday.

Okay.

And then are there other communities, model communities that have units like the one that we're talking about, um, so that we have some idea of how it plays out in practice?

Like yeah, there's many throughout the country.

One of our benchmark cities, Overland Park, Kansas has it, has it.

Um there are many running different models of this.

Madison, Wisconsin is big in this space.

So there's a lot of comp cities to Naperville that already have this up and running.

Can you uh describe what they have in Overland Park and perhaps if they have any non-human assistance?

Yeah, they do.

And that full disclosure, you know, the ask, um, like I said, last year, last year in the budget, was sergeant and five officers.

One of those five officers would be make sure I have all my data here, operating what's called a crisis intervention um canine.

So it's a um it is a canine officer, and I want to make sure I I say this right.

Um they're detect they're trained to detect chemical, neurological, and hormonal changes in the human body when stress is induced.

So whereas they're whereas a lot of our canine sniff for narcotics or explosives, firearms, things like that, this dog can literally would sniff the room for the most stressed person in the room.

The success Overland Park has seen in mental health calls where as great as our people are, there are there are folks in such crisis where we can't communicate through that barrier.

And we've seen Overland Park and other departments that deploy these dogs, bring it up to the scene, and for lack of a better adjective, the person melts and opens up and is willing to connect with those officers once the canine's there.

The rate at which during um disclosure rates in child abuse, child sex abuse, and other sex assault cases when this dog is introduced to the scene, the disclosure rates go up exponentially where they're willing to share during some of the worst things that have happened to their life based on the canine being there.

So, yes, the canine would be part of that.

Um, and we have one lined up whenever, whatever year this program gets approved, we have we have the in for that dog.

And uh one might seem like an obvious question, but former prosecutor I'm asking here, why why is a disclosure why are disclosure rates important in sex abuse cases, child sex abuse cases, what happens in any of these cases?

Okay.

Um so for all, and let me just ask a basic question.

Do you believe in the in this program?

I mean, does it seem to be working in the country?

Yes, sir.

Okay.

So for all the reasons that have kind of been outlined, um, dealing with mental health crisis, one of the biggest crises in our country, reducing child sex abuse, having a higher correction conviction race and rate in child sex abuse cases, other abuse cases, um, all of it, I would like to um explore adding um the unit into the budget.

I know it's something we wanted to do in 2025, actually voted to do in 25.

Um didn't quite happen this year, but um I'd I'd like to know what that would do.

The budget, Mr.

Krieger, and then see if we could have a hands in the air for for adding that in.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman McRoom, is that a follow-up on this?

Yes.

Go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, just kind of refresh my memory on this this conversation.

So when we decided we voted in the previous vote budget, it was contingent on finding revenue replacement for MCIT, finding the revenue replacement from the loss of the grocery tax, we did find that.

Um and uh, but I do remember we were in the middle of negotiations on our public safety contracts.

Um, and we had several meetings, and we knew there was a looming, we weren't just chasing six and a half million, it was more like nine million or eight and a half million, right?

I I was under the impression that we kind of had the general understanding that if that happened, if we had to agree to these much higher contracts, that the MCIT would be one of the things that we would use to offset that that budget hole.

So, you know, I I look at this budget, and you know, hearing some of the things that you've said, Director Munch, um, this is one of the most challenging budgets.

Uh we asked all the departments to slash their budgets.

Uh we froze hiring.

And um, so um I think what councilman uh wholesale is doing is suggesting adding to the to the general fund or adding to the property tax levy.

But um, I I have some bigger concerns.

I mean, um, you know, looking at what we had to do with the general fund this year um and really kind of putting things on a freeze.

Uh I'm concerned, bigger picture that we're we're hitting a tipping point where you know, this low property tax rate uh that we like to tout every year may not be the case in the future that pensions and salaries and things are getting to a point where talking about bells and whistles and and things that we want to have, um, you know, cops, public works, and and fire, those are things that I think of are our city essentials, and um and we're barely able to to find what were we short for.

We ended up being short four million uh this year, and you found you found it.

So I guess give me some reassurance.

I I don't think there's any room for uh the MCIT this year.

We barely had room to do what we need to fund.

Um, but if you could give me some reassurance on the future, maybe in the future MCIT could be included, um, or or maybe let's just talk about next year, what what things look like?

Because I know we have you know a huge spike that I hope doesn't happen again, and and we all hope with uh health insurance.

Um we had the the bigger contracts that came in.

What do you think the future looks like director Munchin?

And could you also address what the MCIT number would be?

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Uh so you know, first off, your recollection on sort of the uh process last year and how that played out uh is accurate to my recollection.

There were you know, first challenges around the grocery tax, followed by uh the negotiations with police and fire unions.

Um, and so when we put together this year's budget, we went into that with the understanding that there were a lot of programs that had tremendous value.

And when Mr.

Kruger and I had conversations about additional staff, um, you know, no is never the answer, right?

If somebody has a need that absolutely has to be addressed, that should be brought forward during the budget process.

But you know, we also have to be cognizant of what dollars are available and what we can reasonably achieve.

And so, as part of that, MCIT was part of the conversation.

It was in the budget last year.

We had to um ultimately not fill those positions because the contracts required that we needed more money, it had to be accommodated.

Um, and you know, our first priority is always taking care of what we have in front of us right now.

And so Chief and I had conversations, um, and you know, we were both in agreement that MCIT absolutely has value for this community, um, and it should be in the budget when when and if that can be accommodated, and in 2026, that just wasn't the case.

Uh, we were working through that two uh 2.5 million dollar deficit, which when we added in the insurance and some of the other declines in the state shared revenues was ultimately four million.

So to add MCIT back into that, um, the numbers we have, and and just for clarification, I think the police department proposed six officers total last year, but the final budget presentation was actually four.

It was three officers and a sergeant.

So we even had to pair back the request last year to accommodate it.

Um we just couldn't get there this year.

To the mayor's question, to add the four officers for next year would be an additional cost of about 900,000.

Um so that's significant.

So now you you take a four million dollar deficit and it's almost five.

Um in terms of the future, uh, you know, I I think I've been pretty transparent.

I I think we're going into a period where things are a little bit tighter.

We've done a very good job over the past several years to make strategic investments where we could.

And I was going back and looking at some of the numbers today.

Since 2019, we've added 64 new positions to the city.

42% of those are in public safety, police and fire.

Um, so we've made tremendous investments in people and programs over the past several years.

Um, and and while we were able to do that, I think we're moving into a period where it's appropriate to take more of a wait and see approach.

You know, the initial forecast that we look at for next year, while I don't think we're solving for another four million dollar deficit, I I do think we're still doing work next year to balance a budget.

Um now, can we fit things like MCIT or some other programs in next year?

That possibility exists.

There are things that hopefully work to our benefit.

Last year, this year we're talking about police and fire salary increases in the seven to eight percent range.

Next year that normalizes, it it goes back down to three.

So assuming you don't run into the same, you know, hurdles with health insurance and and some of these other things.

2027's budget should be one where you can start to take a look at some of those um programs that we just didn't have the ability to include this year.

Councilman Alzar.

Thank you, Mayor.

As a follow-up question to Mr.

Krieger.

Okay, so what I heard is it'd be approximately 900,000 costs to fund the MCIT program.

Um spread over approximately 55,000 households.

Is that about right?

Uh, yes, sir.

And the uh the 900,000 figure would be um uh for a 12 month, it would not, it would not, there would be you know no built-in delay in hiring.

So okay, so about sixteen dollars per household is what I'm seeing.

That sounds right.

Okay, and and there's still even with that would be an overall reduction in the tax rate, correct?

Maybe the the levy goes up, but the rate doesn't necessarily.

So we looked at this earlier today, and if you added that amount of the levy for next year, the rate the rate would absolutely continue to decline.

Um, but again, that doesn't mean people are going to pay less in property taxes.

No, I I got that.

I just wanted to verify the rate continues to go down.

Okay, so a couple of phrases I heard thrown out.

I heard this program referred to as a bells and whistles program.

Heard heard that we could wait and see.

It I just respectfully disagree.

I don't think child sexual abuse reduction is a wait and see program.

I don't think that's a bell or whistle.

Um sometimes we make hard decisions to you know to vote for things that are right for the community.

Um, we've been talking about this program for years, and I just this is an essential to me, and and so I'm gonna I'm gonna ask for hands in the air, mayor on um adding this to the budget.

Thank you.

Okay, councilman Kelly.

Is this related to thank you, Mayor?

Um a couple couple thoughts, a couple questions.

I I actually agree with some things I heard from Councilman Holzhauer and from Councilman McGroom to be honest.

Um, I think it is an important program.

I mean, it was important enough that the council slightly different makeup of the council, but the council a year ago uh voted.

I don't remember if it was unanimous or not.

I think it might have been.

I if not it was close.

I don't recall, but the council supported including this in the budget.

Um with the understanding at the time we supported it that it might not be the positions might not be filled.

That's what wound up happening for a variety of reasons.

I think in part public safety uh salaries, but I think there were some other issues going on with the budget as well that were kind of waiting to see 12 months ago, and we saw later that there's some challenges and and some corrections that that played a part in that as well.

So um, but I do think it's important that the council did uh approve a budget that included these positions.

Uh I credit to staff uh this year for holding the line.

That's what CMO asked, and the departments complied with.

So credit to CMO and and all the departments.

Credit to the chief for not pushing hard.

I think he was a team player as well.

I know he wants the unit, but he it's not the uh it's not the situation that Chief has been pushing for this behind the scenes, even though he certainly would like to see it as we heard.

Um I generally am interested in adding it because I don't think the situation has changed today compared to 12 months ago.

Uh I think just as we thought it was necessary 12 months ago, I still think that's the case now.

Um I'd kind of like a little more information about exactly what it would look like.

I heard I think I just heard that the property tax rate would still go down.

I didn't hear by exactly how much.

I don't know when we could get that information, and of course the tax rate's not the end all be all as as uh Director Munch talked about earlier, but I think it would be nice to know that before we take a final vote.

Obviously, we're not taking a final vote on the budget tonight.

Um I will say I I you know for me I I just thought heavily about this earlier today, like shortly before the meeting.

I heard this was gonna come up tonight, talk to Chief about it.

Uh the one specific thing Chief told me was that he absolutely believes we need it and it will help our department and our city.

Um and that that's meaningful.

I I think the budget is a challenge this year.

I it doesn't seem like it's gonna get a whole lot easier next year or the year after.

You know, I I know you you didn't give us your crystal ball, uh Director Munch, but you're probably never gonna have one, right?

So trying to figure out when is the easier to put it in.

I don't know that we're ever gonna have an easier to put it in.

Uh you know, inflation continues, costs go up every year.

Um if we're if the idea is that we're eventually going to have it, I'd probably rather have it sooner rather than later and start helping people sooner rather than later if we think it's an inevitability at some point in the next couple of years.

Um I think I lean that way.

In particular, one one thing, uh one other thing the chief and I spoke about was what what he already said publicly here about uh freeing up some of the beat officers.

And when you talk to beat officers, they when I talk to them, they talk a lot about the beat issues more than maybe this specific issue and particular growth on the south side of town matrix club, block 59's coming, the new residential developments polo club along 111th.

They've got a lot of new uh areas to take care of that they didn't have before, and so freeing those up are are I think you know, I don't know if I'll say equal, but very nearly as important.

Um so all that to say, I think I am supportive.

I just don't uh I don't know exactly what we'd be putting our hands in there for tonight, if that would be to include it in what would be approved at the council meeting, uh, or if you could, and or if you can get back to us with information about the exact finances, what it would do to the property tax levy and rates.

I I guess I'd like to know about that before having to make a final decision.

Well, that's a great segue to where I can give you a little bit of a response.

Uh I I think because this is just coming up now and it was not in the published agenda, um, we'd be likely looking for a show of hands in support of requesting staff to prepare a report for the November 18th City Council meeting um specifically about the MCIT proposal and its projected impact on the budget and state tax rate.

So that's that's likely going to be what the show of hands would be for.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Councilman McBroom.

I'm sorry.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh I just wanted to be clear.

I I think Councilman Halteller misunderstood, or I think I wasn't clear, and I I understand why you thought I referred to the MCIT as a bells and whistles, but uh really a big picture.

I'm I'm referring to, you know, we throw a lot of money around with food and beverage with very little scrutiny.

Um I'm looking at this general fund, and I agree with uh Director Munch, this is probably his most challenging uh budget to put together, and I don't think coming into the third workshop after having very little scrutiny on other things, uh adding the asking the the staff to add another 900 million dollars into the general fund.

I just it just doesn't sound fiscally sound to me.

So uh question I was still kind of asking a question on related to those, or do you do want to go to the job?

I'd like to get the the request from Councilman Hall's hour with some sort of support or not.

Okay, so um again, this is not a commitment to spend the 900 as much as it is a commitment to have staff bring a report back for the November 18th council meeting about the MCIT proposal, what that would look like, it's projected impact on the budget and tax rate.

Councilman Hallzer is that Yes Mayor, I just wanted to clarify that um that's enough time that if if we voted yes at that meeting, that wouldn't cause a problem for you publishing a levy, all that.

Mr.

Krieger, uh it does allow enough time, but it doesn't allow much wiggle room.

So um, you know, uh if that is the will of the council, the way it will work is uh we will take that early in the agenda um on the 18th, and then later in the agenda, um council will approve uh the truth in taxation notice that would have to go out.

So that would still allow us to meet all of our statutory obligations as long as the decision is made um at the next meeting.

Okay, that answers it.

And then in in light of that, um my ask would be that since there's zero margin for wiggle room.

Um my ask would be that in staff's report um they say what the cost would be at four officers and also at the full six that was originally asked for, and then there's the menu of options, and we don't have to guess at that.

We can do that, sir.

Councilman, um would you be willing to add into that a potential ramp up on not just the four, but potentially two, four, and then potentially getting to the the full request over a period of time.

Uh sure.

So um I I suppose two, four or six, uh, but I would I would ask I mean I I guess I would ask that a full amount be hired in in next year, as we saw from this year's budget, even if it gets in the budget, sometimes it doesn't happen.

And um yeah, so as as I think this through, I just want to make sure what we vote on.

We're we're making a firm commitment that will follow through on the on the full hiring.

Okay.

Those in favor of the thorough report that the professional staff will put together on MCIT, raise your hand.

Okay.

Councilman Wilson, back to you.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um at the most recent PAB meeting, we had a uh review of the renewable energy program.

Um so related to that, we have a uh electronic lawn rebate program.

Um so I guess a question for Director Groth or Director Munch.

Um the funding for that um comes from the general fund, or can you differentiate that between the uh renewable energy program?

Yeah, I'll take that one.

So we have a number of uh grant programs that are um kind of fall within the severe sphere of our sustainability efforts.

Uh the renewable energy program, um that's a legacy program.

Those grants have been out there for many years.

The electrical lawn equipment grant is a little bit newer.

I think we started that two or three years ago.

That is a general fund program that came out of um sustainability efforts.

It's relatively small.

It started out as five thousand dollars.

I think it's up to ten thousand now, but that is a sustainability grant program that is funded from general fund revenues.

Uh thank you.

Um so I guess uh, you know, we're looking at obviously a much smaller, significantly smaller line item, but um trying to get to things like MCIT, uh I think it'd be important to uh remove programs like this where one is effectively subsidizing another in order to uh purchase an electronic lawn equipment.

Um I mean, by all means, if people would like to support that, feel free to offer money to the people to to do it.

It's your prerogative.

Um but yeah, so in my opinion, I think we should remove that uh that item um from the budget.

It's kind of where I'm at with it.

Thank you.

Councilman McBruom.

Uh yeah, unrelated.

Um I may go back to that.

Um it's just something that's on my mind, I gotta ask it, and it may be a stupid question.

So you know, we talk about this uh the general fund balance, uh it's almost 70 million.

Um I don't know what we're gonna do with that.

Um obviously you don't want to commit it to permanent expenses.

Um that people complain to me a lot about, and I haven't come to public works on it.

Um, but it's the tree trimming on the parkways.

I was on a dog walk the other day and a neighbor, I like kind of yelled at me about it.

Um I do get it a lot, and I've been told that it's a two-year wait.

Like if you were to call.

So they're on a seven-year schedule.

But if you were to call and say, hey, my my tree, so I I know people are out trimming their own trees.

I don't know if we want that.

Um I'm wonder if that's an area where we could contract out and would that be a use?

Is that something we could use to say, hey, let's speed this up, let's knock out every parkway tree in in town?

Um just an idea.

Actually, that'd probably be uh uh deputy director Schwarzkopf.

Um that's that's one of her programs, and we currently do use outside vendors for that, but we are behind the cycle that we that's correct.

So we have a mix of in-house and contracted for tree trimming.

We are way behind on tree trimming.

So over the last couple years, we've um more than doubled our contract money.

We now have $500,000 to go towards tree trimming, and we have kind of changed our philosophy, and we're telling people outside of the cycle, they're gonna have to wait so we can stay on the cycle because it's much more efficient to kind of keep going down the street than to hop all over the place.

So um, we have put a lot more efforts towards tree trimming.

Is is the general fund balance something that if we wanted to beef that up and speed it up and move along faster and not be behind, is that somewhere we could go if council agreed?

So this has come up a couple of times in the last couple of years because the general fund balance is pretty healthy.

Um, you know, the one thing that I have said is you don't want to commit those dollars to ongoing operating expenses.

What you're pointing out here is one that kind of falls in the middle.

It's certainly an operating expense, but the advantage is you can turn it on and turn it off whenever you want.

It's not like hiring people and paying salary and benefits and pensions long term.

Um, so you know, if those are the types of programs that council um you know wanted to commit additional dollars to, uh, I think that's a conversation we can have.

Uh I know we increased that budget last year, if I'm not mistaken, and that is on the next council agenda for an option year, right?

So I think there's a $500,000 award for contracted tree trimming coming on the next council agenda for next year.

So we're committing some some fairly significant dollars.

Um, and so I you know, I defer to public works on what the right dollar amount is long term, but it's a discussion we can have.

Well, and I will say it is hard to get enough contractors to actually do the work.

Um, so 500, we have found if we do that for a couple more years, we will be much closer to on our benchmark cycle where we need to be.

So I think right now 500 is a good amount.

Um, and if we end up with a light winter and have extra money in our budget, we could always do a change order to add more if we could do that.

But okay, no more questions.

You know, and um there were two, you know, two issues raised.

Um, Mayor, I didn't know if you wanted to do a show of hands for you know the elimination of the um uh electric lawn equipment rebate um or anything on tree trimming.

Uh sorry, go ahead.

As far as my my request goes, if they decided they needed more money, is that even something that needs to be a part of the budget process?

This general the general fund, like if if we decided if I brought up a new business at some point and they they need a million dollars, or does that have to be part of the budget process?

You know, it wouldn't have to be part of the budget process.

Um, you know, a a million may be fine, and also it may not be fine.

Um but uh no, that's something that we could adjust on the fly.

Okay.

So I'm not gonna make a motion for it, right?

Okay, Councilman Wilson.

Uh yeah, I'd like to get a show of hands on that.

I don't I don't think it's fair for if uh about household income is I don't know, $75,000, and they're subsidivized by somebody's household is $50,000.

So I'd like to get a show of hands on that.

The uh electric.

Councilman Kelly, you have a question?

Go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Mayor.

Just I know you already spoke about it, but if we're gonna have a show of hands, can you give us a little more information on the total cost and and what the alternative would be if if any, if we went this way?

And the funding mechanism.

So the electric lawn equipment rebate is a ten thousand dollar a year program.

It's funded from the general fund.

We don't assign specific general fund dollars to individual expenses, so I can't tell you if those are ten thousand dollars in property taxes or sales taxes or something else, but it's certainly general fund revenue, um, which are you know, general revenues meant to support core city services.

Other options uh we've talked about this before.

I I don't think it fits within the allowable parameters of the renewable energy grant program.

Um, I think there's some tighter uh parameters around that, so it doesn't fit there.

Um, and and that's why, frankly, from the start, we kind of struggled with this one, and the general fund seemed like the only place it can really live outside of creating you know some other fund with other funding sources.

Um, again, it's relatively small dollars, but it's dollars, so um yeah.

Councilman Kelly, follow-up?

Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, just a quick follow-up.

I guess um, I mean, it sounds like a good program, so I hate to eliminate it entirely, but to me, it really does sound like it's more in line with uh REP.

And I know there are tight parameters on that, but I mean my recollection, this is probably five or six years ago, we didn't have residential solar allowed as that program, and we made a change to allow it and ensure residential solar is not the same as maybe lawn equipment, but conceptually it doesn't seem that different to me.

I mean, would it be possible even if it required a change to REP to move this from general fund to that?

Director Groth.

Brian Groff Electric Utility Director.

So a couple of things.

We have moved the management of the REP over to the sustainability folks within the city.

Um I believe at the December, one of the December meetings, they'll be providing an update on the program.

We just talked about it at PUAB, so I think that would be a great time to talk about what is included and what's not included in the renewable energy program.

Traditionally, I will say traditionally we have kept anything that does not have kilowatt hour savings associated to it out of the state of Illinois technical reference manual out of the renewable energy fund.

So said another way, um, everything that is in the renewable energy fund outside of solar has a specific defined amount of kilowatt hour savings that is derived out of the state of Illinois technical reference manual.

To my knowledge, there is no stated say savings of kilowatt hours by using electric lawn equipment.

Are you done?

Uh I will be in a minute.

I mean, my only comment to that is uh granted, uh, but it does seem like it would reduce carbon emissions, maybe not kilowatt hours, but if we're doing some carbon emissions, it seems on point for the program to me.

So uh I I would say that would be worth considering.

I hate to raise my hand in the air to just eliminate it, but I would be supportive of investigating if there's a different uh bucket that could live in councilman Wilson.

Uh I'd support eliminating it, and then we could look at options to put it in the renewable program.

Okay, show of hands in support of Councilman Wilson's suggestion to eliminate the $10,000 um if we call it electric lawnmower grant, lawn equipment.

Lawn equipment, blowers included.

Okay.

Hands in favor.

Three.

Okay.

Do you want an alternative?

Councilman.

I do you have a suggestion for him?

Just to see if it could be the different program.

Okay.

I mean, you still wanted to see if it's is if it should be moved into a program that actually has a revenue source.

Sure, right.

Yeah, we can look at moving it to the renewable program.

Uh mayor mayor, we're gonna have uh sustainability up for the December discussion.

I think that's a great time uh to kind of continue this discussion.

So it's it's a month away.

Okay.

I I mean I I guess I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

I I guess I don't see what the point of that would be after word voting to put it in the budget right now.

But the Mr.

Krieger.

Uh if uh decision is made in December um uh to fund it a different way, and those ten thousand dollars were not used within the general fund, um, although it would still be budgeted and wouldn't warn a budget amendment.

Um, those are gonna be 10,000 that are not ten thousand dollars of property tax money that is not being spent.

Thank you.

Okay, Mr.

Krieger, why don't you go down to the overview slide and then we'll look for the next question?

All right, uh thank you, Mayor.

Um as we wrap up tonight's presentation, we have one summary of the 2026 budget.

Budget total 685 million dollars, nearly 174 million of that make up the general fund portion of the budget, and another 190 million make up our capital improvement program.

Uh these workshops have covered nearly six hours of discussion during which we reviewed approximately 90 percent of the 2026 budget.

Thank you for questions and feedback through this process.

Uh at this point in time, uh, we'd like to turn things over to council to see if yours if you to seek your support for the 2026 proposed budget with the caveat that there will be a consideration next Tuesday um related to the MCIT program.

Okay, are there any more questions from council before we look for a show of hands in support of the proposed 2026 budget proposal?

Seeing none, those in favor signify by saying uh putting your hand in the ear.

Is that unanimous?

I think it's unanimous.

Mr.

Krieger, anything additional?

Uh just one mayor.

We're getting close.

Uh next step in the budget process will take place at the next council meeting um where you will receive uh both the mobile crisis intervention team write up, uh make a decision on that first, uh, and then we will show the estimated property tax levy as well as schedule the uh public budget hearing.

Uh in December, um we will hold the uh public hearing and ask you to formally adopt the budget, followed by the property tax levy approval at the second meeting in the month.

And uh mayor, um want to thank council uh as well as uh staff, um particularly finance department, um, because this concludes our presentation for the evening uh and overall for the 2026 budget.

Um thank you.

And before we depart, it's uh appropriate to extend our sincere thanks to our professional staff for the thorough and thoughtful manner that went into this budget.

A lot was discussed, a lot of good questions and answers from our city council, and the responsibility developing a six hundred and eighty-five million dollar budget, it's a huge task.

So uh we appreciate all the work you put into this.

And I also want to say thank you for the care in taking uh in providing the services and advancing our priorities in a fiscally responsible way that put all of our taxpayers' dollars to work in the most effective way possible.

So with that, our workshop is concluded.

Thank you.

Stay warm.

Okay, I think you don't want to take it around CRT.

I hope you're not.