PEORIA, Ill. – Peoria’s City Council Tuesday night approved the $282 million proposed budget for 2025.
City Manager Patrick Urich says next year’s budget puts money towards streets, sewers and stormwater with $65 million going to the city’s infrastructure.
“We are funding all of our public safety services, all of our public works services, all of our community development services. We have full funding for all of our pensions that we need to meet,” Urich tells WMBD’s “Greg and Dan Show”.
Urich says Tuesday night, Council spent a lot of time talking about a fundamental policy decision.
“We’ve seen property values grow by about 7.3 percent in this coming year, the anticipated growth. And, discussion centered on do we use our cash reserves, and we’ve got about $136 million in reserves, about $50 million in the general fund, instead of taking the natural property tax growth from assessed value growth,” Urich said.
Council rejected a proposal suggested by 5th District Councilman Denis Cyr to keep the proposed property tax levy for the 2025 budget at this year’s level. The vote was 6-5.
Council members Chuck Grayeb, Zach Oyler, Kiran Velpula and John Kelly were all in favor of the proposal, but they with Cyr were in the minority.
Mayor Rita Ali, Council members Denise Jackson, Tim Riggenbach, Andre Allen, Bernice Gordon-Young and Mike Vespa voted against the proposal.
Final action on the property tax levy and 2025 city budget is expected at Council’s next meeting on Tuesday, November 12.
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