Macon Reporter

Even with the Decatur City Council recently voting to pass a 2018 budget more than $3 million out of whack, Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe held out hope that things can be different.

“Adopting a budget like this tonight does not preclude us from coming up with other things,” Wolfe said during a recent City Council meeting. “Everybody’s got to really take a look at this. It’s not getting any better and we need the state to know that. We probably will have to take a look at some very significant cuts.”

The city’s declining population and shrinking tax base aside, the Decatur Herald & Review reports the budget shortfall further stems from a combination of deficit costs and a decline in multiple revenue streams, including revenue from sales taxes, cable taxes and hotel taxes.

Mayor Julie Moore Wolfe

In addition, the Illinois Policy Institute has reported the city’s population dipped by at least 3,400 residents over a six-year period beginning in 2010, ranking it as Illinois’ fastest shrinking city.

“The logic behind proposing a deficit budget is we’re not sure what direction the state is taking,” Decatur City Manager Tim Gleason said, referencing a two-year period where the state operated with no balanced budget in place. “We’re taking a wait-and-see approach. If the state continues with the same cuts in their F19 budget, we’ve got some serious concerns. We’ve built cash reserves over the last couple years of $3.7 million, but we would rather not have to use those to cover the deficit.”

With the city’s population dwindling at such an alarming rate, Decatur is expected to lose as much as $1.4 million in state tax revenue disbursed through the local government distributive fund (LGDF), which distributes shares of state personal and corporate income taxes to local governments based on their share of the state population.

In addition, as part of the state budget lawmakers agreed to in July, LGDF funding was also cut by 10 percent.

Even in the face of all that change, City Council member Bill Faber let it be known that he hasn’t given up on things going back to the way they’ve been.

“This is the first time the city of Decatur has ever sought to pass a deficit budget,” he said. “I would like to see what a balanced budget looks like. Our citizens would like to see what it would take to get to balance. I think our citizens would like to know before we spend their money and make a commitment to a deficit. We have not explored deeply revenue sources; we have not explored staffing, rather staffing can be cut or salaries cut. We have not had an exchange of view.”