Council trims 9% from borrowing plan
Evanston's City Council voted 7-2 Monday night to slice nearly $2.2 million from next year's planned borrowing for capital improvement projects funded by general obligation bonds.
That cuts the proposed borrowing from $23.5 million to $21.3 million. That's a further reduction from what initially was a proposed $28.8 million in CIP general obligation borrowing when the budget was first unveiled last month.
The latest reductions, recommended by City Engineer Lara Biggs, were achieved primarily by pushing funding for part or all of several projects into the 2026 budget year — in the expectation that payments for those items won't actually need to be made in 2025.
Projects that had their funding shifted included the planned canoe launch at the Ecology Center and various improvements at the city's Service Center, the Baker Park Fieldhouse, the Fleetwood-Jourdain Center, the Levy Center and the South End Community Center.
Ald. Clare Kelly (1st) and Ald. Devon Reid (8th) voted against the change.
Reid said the general obligation borrowing should be cut by more than half — to $10 million — with the remaining projects funded by increasing various other existing taxes and fees and creating new ones.
Kelly appeared to favor just reducing the borrowing level to $10 million — roughly the amount of existing bond debt that the city typically pays off each year.
Biggs noted that, because of inflation, $10 million in new debt issued today would buy less than half the value of construction work that the old bonds did when they were issued 20 years ago
Monday night's vote was only to modify the CIP figures included in the full city budget that will be up for an introductory vote next Monday and scheduled for final adoption on Nov. 25.
Ald. Bobby Burns (5th) voted for the cut proposed by staff Monday night. But saying "We don't have a plan to balance our budget," Burns added that he would probably vote no on final adoption of the CIP plan unless it is cut in half.
The council Monday night also heard a lengthy series of presentations from city department heads about changes in their budgets for 2025. Those didn't lead the council to make any significant alterations to those proposals.
