ROCK ISLAND, Ill — The city of Rock Island must have their 2021 budget finalized by Jan. 1, but now, as they face a budget deficit over $1.5 million dollars, combined with close to $2 million in lost revenue, city leaders tell News 8 that in a year of significant revenue losses, there are unique challenges to keeping taxpayer costs low this year.
Rock Island says balancing 2021's budget will need to take creative thinking, cuts to city projects, new sources of revenue, and a proposed property tax increase.
Budget shortfalls have been an issue for years for city officials in Rock Island. As Mayor Mike Thoms explained, the city had nearly a $5 million dollar deficit to make up just three years ago. By last year, the city had brought that down to around $3 million dollars, and before the pandemic hit, they had only been anticipating a $1.5 million dollar deficit for 2021.
"We were making headway on getting this thing balanced," remarked Mayor Thoms. "And then you add the pandemic."
In the months since the pandemic took hold, Rock Island has faced several unique challenges that have exacerbated their budget deficit problems. Lost revenue from gaming, food and drink taxes, and more, has created serious issues for the city.
"For example, [Jumer's Casino & Hotel], we actually receive about $350,000 a month from them. And when they were shut down for four months, you lose that revenue," explained the mayor. "And now they're shut down again."
All of this has combined into what they mayor estimated to be a $1.5-2 million dollar revenue shortfall for Rock Island this year; weighing heavily on top of the preexisting $1.5 million dollar budget deficit.
He also said staffing shortages have created a unique lack of wiggle-room when it comes to planning 2021's budget. Normally, the city would look to potential staff cuts, or making adjustments that don't involve hiring someone new, after someone moves, quits or retires. In fact, the city says they've had less employees every year for the past 10, as they worked to become more efficient with the remaining people and technology.
However, since the pandemic began, the city has been in a hiring freeze. Now Rock Island, which currently employees around 400 people, is down 30 workers - including around eight staff on Rock Island's police force - since they haven't been able to hire back any positions left open due to retirements or from those who move away.
And as the city approaches 2021, there are even more people eligible for retirement, including another eight members of the police force.
"We cannot live with that many short," said Mayor Thoms. "We can all adjust and work with our work loads, but we also want to make sure we can look forward and not just hold even."
While the city has been routinely cutting down the number of staff members for the last few years, being short this many, all at once, causes concern.
"It's all a matter of what department and where those bodies are, on how critical the shortage is," said the mayor. "30 [openings] is detrimental depending on what department. We talked about safety in the police department. The other is public works. Fixing water main breaks and street lights that go out. You need bodies to be able to do those kinds of functions - basic functions."
While Rock Island is planning on opening a few positions up for hire, beginning Jan. 1, as well as a few more positions throughout 2021, they say when it comes to this year's budget, they can't afford to cut any more staff like they might usually consider.
"When you start losing people it becomes more critical because we've already been squeezing that out over the years," said the mayor.
And as Dylan Parker, Rock Island's Alderman for the Fifth Ward explained, there's already existing cost-cutting when it comes to the employees that do work for the city.
"Rock Island pays the lowest portion of employee healthcare than all of our neighboring communities. We have the lowest wages in comparison to neighboring municipalities," he said. "We try really, really hard to keep expenses low. People believe there's all this fat in the municipal government, but really we're getting to the point now, where if we continue to cut, people's services will be impacted."
Those impacts, both he and Mayor Thoms agree, would come in the form of city services, such as garbage cleanup, water treatment, police and fire services, sewage repairs, street replacements and more.
All of this comes as the city proposes a 6.25% property tax increase.
"People are used to good services. The streets plowed on a timely basis; the garbage collected on time; abandoned cars taken care of. You start affecting those kinds of services when you lose this many bodies," said the mayor. "Some people may say that's fine, 'I don't wanna increase property tax, just eliminate those services.' There's other people saying, 'Wait a minute, I'm paying a lot, I want those services.'"