Public safety, investments in technology and facilities among priorities for Springfield’s City Council to consider.

The City Manager’s proposed fiscal year 2017 (FY2017) budget was provided to City Council today in the first of four scheduled workshops.

Revenue projections and known expenditures form the basis of the budget, and. As always, the budget requests received by the City Manager from departments far exceed available funding.

“All of the requests are for needed items and would improve the service we are able to provide our citizens,” said City Manager Greg Burris.

“The state of the City is strong – in part due to the effective work by all employees,” Burris said, in the annual budget letter that leads the 270-page budget document. “Thank you for helping us keep operations running as smoothly as possible and within budget. This is not an easy task.”

The focus of the budget is on funding critical operating needs:

• 1) Public and employee safety, including additional officers and associated equipment;
• 2) Investments in technologies, including updating enterprise software that will no longer be supported by the vendor, police software to assist investigators and job applicant software;
• 3) Facilities maintenance and equipment, including protecting the exterior shell of the Busch Municipal Building to reduce moisture infiltration, setting aside funds to purchase a Fire ladder truck and the removal of abandoned underground fuel storage tanks;
• 4) Initiatives that focus on critical community issues, such as meeting some of the needs identified in the Zone Blitz Action Plan. Those include security cameras, project signage and enhanced communication with citizens.

A significant amount of needs were identified in the Community Listen Zone 1 Tour last May. “We are fortunate that community partners and City Council are committed to working together to ‘move the needle’ on some of these issues,” Burris explained.

View the full budget document here.