Florissant Mayor Gives 2012 Budget Synopsis to Council, Public

With the for Florissant ending on Nov. 30, Mayor Tom Schneider gave residents a first-hand glimpse of numbers for 2012 at the beginning of Monday’s council meeting.

“I believe the proposed budget presents a reasonable and conservative framework for providing continued high levels of city services given the issues facing the city, both now and in the future,” Mayor Schneider read in his budget message.

The $30.9 million proposed budget comes as an approximate 5 percent decrease to the 2011 budget of $32.5 million.

During his address, Mayor Schneider pointed out a few key points of next year’s budget, including no raises for full-time or part-time city employees as well as no layoffs or furloughs for those employees, an increase in premiums for employees’ medical insurance for as much as 20 percent and an additional pay period, which will account for an additional $550,000 to the budget.

Mayor Schneider said that the 27th pay cycle happens around every 11 years.

“It is unfortunate that this would occur in the same year that we feel the effects of the new census, but that cannot be helped,” he said in his message.

Mayor Schneider also pointed out the use of the city’s $1.45 million reserves to help in the upcoming budget year with the extra pay cycle. However, funds not used for 2011 year would be put into reserves, and it looks to be close to the current total of $1.45 million. The mayor assured the public that no reserves from capital improvement, park improvement or sewer lateral funds would be used.

As far as revenues, the proposed budget shows $22.9 million in projected revenues compared to $23.7 million for 2011.

Council President Keith English said on Tuesday afternoon that he hasn’t gone through the budget thoroughly, but he believes that deeper cuts are going to have to be made.

“It is a budget. We have two days, and I think it’s going to need some tweaking,” he said.

English, who represents Ward 4, said that due to , and , Florissant’s share of the pool would decline.

Municipalities are divided into two camps—point-of-sale, or “A” cities and pool, or “B” cities. Under the system, the wealthiest “A” cities are required to share a portion of their 1-cent countywide sales tax revenues with both the “B” cities and St. Louis County on a per-capita basis.

Florissant is a B city.

With the beginning of the budget year looming—it starts on Dec. 1—councilors are preparing to jump into the new budget proposal with public hearings on Oct. 11 and Oct. 12 at 6:30 p.m. at City Hall.

Check back tomorrow for a proposed budget breakdown on Florissant Patch.