The Naperville City Council held its first of four budget workshops on Tuesday, focusing primarily on capital projects in the city for 2024.
New underground electric lines and water main replacements
Over $21 million is currently slated for planned electric improvements, including $2.7 million for moving electric lines from overhead to underground. Naperville plans to continue implementing underground lines over the next five years, for a project whose total will come in around $52 million.
Councilman Patrick Kelly was excited for Naperville residents to see the implementation of these new underground electric lines.
“The underground conversion is something that I think has a real, tangible benefit,” said Kelly. “One of the more common complaints I’ve heard from residents in downtown neighborhoods over the past year (is) our blackouts we’ve had. There’s a number of reasons for it, some of it’s back luck, some of it is just the fact that we’ve got overhead lines in those neighborhoods.”
Naperville plans to spend $9.3 million on water main replacements for River Road, Sylvan Circle, Washington Street, and Columbia Street.
Investment in transportation, technology, and public facilities
The city plans to dedicate over $50 million to the maintenance of roads, sidewalks, bridges, and other infrastructure, including $800,000 for 248th Street capacity improvements, and $300,000 for the 87th Street Bridge at Springbrook Creek.
Construction will continue on Washington Street’s bridge replacement and downtown streetscape, which will total $8.5 million.
The majority of the estimated $14 million the city has set aside for 2024 technology improvements will go to the citywide radio network. Naperville plans to invest $10 million to address federally mandated interoperability and improve signal coverage.
Public facilities in Naperville are expected to receive a $9 million investment, including $1.3 million for the fire station’s living quarters and $625,000 for the police station’s investigations section.
Funding capital projects
Naperville funds its capital projects through a variety of sources, including home rule sales taxes, motor fuel taxes, and a downtown food and beverage tax. However, electric capital revenue was a cause for concern among the dais.
The city has seen a sharp decrease in Illinois Municipal Electric Agency (IMEA) purchased energy and electric service charges since 2018, resulting in approximately $20 million of lost revenue.
Brian Groth, Naperville’s Director of Public Utilities – Electric had answers for the council on the recent decrease.
“We believe that it’s related to solar energy production within the city,” said Groth. “We now have over 700 solar installations between commercial and residential. We also think that perhaps some of the load has gone due to energy-efficient programs. We do think there is some impact around large commercial office buildings and the work from home.”
Despite the lost revenue, Councilman Ian Holzhauer was proud of the city’s efforts to become more energy efficient.
“The electric department worked really hard to promote these efficiency programs to get people in Naperville to switch to LEDs,” said Holzhauer. “We have a really awesome, robust solar program. This is a way we’re a leading community.”
“Double-digit” budget increase concerns McBroom
City staff estimate the capital improvement program will cost the city more than $155 million. This would be a 10% increase from 2023.
Councilman Josh McBroom was concerned about the double-digit budget increase and urged staff to cut the growing number of capital expenditures.
“Looking at renovations and improvements, if there (were) areas that we’d want to look at, I’d rely on the staff to look at those areas that aren’t urgent,” said McBroom. “Are these types of things necessary for our city staff to be able to do their jobs?”
Naperville’s Director of Finance Rachel Mayer said staff will look into the immediate need of these projects while drafting the final budget.
“Some of these (investments) are coming to their 20 or 40-year life cycle,” said Mayer. “Reinvesting in those is really a timing thing. You can push some of that, then you spend money on preventative maintenance. We will make sure what we recommend in October is needs-based.
2024 budget timeline
City council and staff will reconvene at the second budget meeting on Sept. 26. This workshop will focus on financing city staff, and City Manager Doug Krieger will review requests.
No final actions were taken by the dais on Tuesday.
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