Monday night kicks off a four-day week of budget presentations in front of Bloomington’s city council. After Mayor John Hamilton’s address scheduled for 6 p.m., the council will hear from Human Resources, City Clerk, Legal, Information and Technology Services, City Council, Controller, and the Office of the Mayor.
A couple of highlights include: $350,000 for the replacement of wired Ethernet network; and a proposed 13.5-percent increase for city councilmember salaries, from $16,127 to $18,307.
The proposed 2020 budget of $98.6 million is 36 percent bigger than the last budget approved for Hamilton’s predecessor, in 2016. Of the four basic categories in the budget—personnel, supplies, other services, and capital outlays—the biggest difference between the proposed 2020 budget and the one adopted in 2016 is in capital outlays. The $8.6 million for 2020 is almost three and a half times the $2.5 million in 2016.
For most departments presenting on Monday night, capital outlays are not a big factor. For ITS, however, the 2020 proposal reflects one of the larger capital outlays in the budget: $350,000 for the replacement of wired ethernet network hardware and wireless Wi-Fi network hardware. It’s the same amount budgeted for a Kirkwood Avenue street project. (The Planning and Transportation Department presents its proposal on Thursday. Jump to a table with 2020 capital outlays, sorted by cost.)
Three departments worth of elected officials will be presenting on Monday—city clerk, mayor, and city council. Such departments are not typically associated with intensive capital outlays. But because the city council directly oversees a fund for sidewalk and traffic calming projects, there’s $324,000 worth of capital outlays in the city council’s 2020 budget associated with that fund.
The city council’s 2020 budget proposal is different from that of the other two elected officials in another way. Instead of the basic 2 percent increase in compensation for non-union employees that underlies the overall budget, the request from the city council is for a 13.5-percent increase. Continue reading “Monday’s budget presentations: Ethernet for ITS, salary increase for city council”