ABOVE: Mayor Williams and Danville City Council Public Services Committee
At the end of Tuesday (Oct 28th) evening’s Danville City Council Public Services Committee meeting, the agenda item “Review Draft of 2025 Tax Levy and 26-27 Budget” brought significant conversation. Although much of it was between Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr and Alderman Doug Ahrens, Alderwoman Tricia Teague also spoke, stating that she agreed with Ahrens that this year, unlike how it’s been done in recent years, the tax levy and budget should perhaps be considered separately. As while the levy has to be passed by the final full council meeting in December; the budget can conceivably happen later, since the new fiscal year does not begin until May 1st.
AUDIO: I don’t have an answer to how long it would take, or should take. But I do think that we need to take our time, and look at all of our revenue and all of our expenditures; and make sure that we are doing things appropriately, and in a way that attempts to satisfy all parties involved.
But Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr says he does not believe in separating the levy and budget, because when you make budgetary changes, with the levy already established, it hits residents the hardest.
AUDIO: Let’s say that aldermen decide they’re not going to fund this, or they’re not going to allow for a general fund transfer as part of the budget process to the levy. And that means the levy is going to be short. That means that folks’ property taxes would skyrocket.
Another topic brought up during end of meeting discussion was Alderman Ahrens saying that, the way he sees it, way too much of the casino revenue that goes into the general fund ends up being used to help pay pension costs. He says that prevents casino revenue from being used for special causes, like incentives for economic development.
AUDIO: The days of us waiting for someone coming to us to ask for money, you know, we have not had a lot of good success lately with that. It’s a different market out there. It’s a different world out there. And I think we need to take a more aggressive approach of reaching out to people, showing them the incentive programs that we have.
Alderwoman Sherry Pickering stated that what Ahrens was proposing could end up being “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Because when you take that funding away from the pensions, which is a very touchy subject, where do you make it up?
AUDIO: My question is, where does that money come from? In our budget, where are we going to take that money to pay our pensions if we don’t use the casino money? (And he was saying, well you make cuts elsewhere. Is that easier said than done?) A lot easier said than done.
A full Danville City Council meeting will take place next Tuesday, November 4th.
