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A quick one this week, but I'll have a couple of new stories coming out here shortly as we gear up for the Council's decision on the Public Works site RFP. Let's jump straight into some quick hits!
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- Some highlights from the Chief Administrative Officer Russ Hawes' presentation of the FY26 budget at the Council's February 13th work session:
- First up, here's the big picture according to Hawes: "For the past decade, revenue growth has generally offset operational expenses. FY25: revenue growth plateaus while expenses continue to rise. FY26: financial outlook reflects continued challenges. Strategic adjustments are needed to ensure fiscal responsibility... Over the past decade, Kirkwood has experiences steady growth in revenue streams driven by expanding economic activity and sales tax revenue. The current trend shows a slowing of this grown, indicating a need for adaptive fiscal strategies to maintain financial health and sustainability." Increasing expenses are largely due to factors like high interest rates and pension obligations that are outside of the city's control at this point (we took on both debts a long time ago and have to pay them), but the plateauing revenue piece of the puzzle is absolutely something we can control. The Council has a massive revenue lever it can pull called "cut zoning red tape and let people build stuff" that would unleash economic prosperity for both residents and the city itself. But we refuse to pull it. As you're about to see, that stubborn refusal has a ton of negative tradeoffs.
- Two factors have forced (and will continue to force) the Water Department to significantly raise rates in recent years:
- The first is our pipes are old and so we lose a bunch of water through cracks and main breaks. There's good news on that front as water losses dropped to 7% last year compared to 16% the year before and 26% the year before that. Apparently the reason for this significant improvement is "replacing problematic mains and exercising and replacing valves for quicker shutoffs."
- The other big cost driver is the "Federal and State mandate [that] went into effect in FY24 [which requires] all lead and galvanized service lines to be replaced within 10 years." The city has yet to begin this costly process and will not begin this year either due to cost constraints. The plan is to start in FY27.
- Fire House 3 (Essex) has been operating understaffed for the last several years. According to Hawes: "In order to bring Fire staffing at House 3 from the current minimum staffing of 4 to a staffing of 5, three firefighters would need to be added (one per shift). Adding these personnel would provide some benefit in emergency response. The cost would be over $360,000. Management does not support this addition at this time, but may be considered in future years with additional revenue streams." But the city already brought a quarter cent sales tax increase which it said would fund the full staffing of Fire House 3 to voters back in 2018. Voters passed it and yet nothing's changed. Starting to feel a bit like Charlie Brown trying to kick the football.
- Street improvements funded by the TDD tax hike won't begin until FY27
- Sometime in the next couple of city will be coming to the voters to approve a big new bond to fund a complete overhaul of the Aquatic Center
- Excited to hear Salt + Smoke is coming to the old Bar Louie location in Kirkwood Station Plaza after they backed off plans to expand to the old Fortel's site a few years back
- Not much in last week's Webster-Kirkwood Times but glad to see Glendale approved the rezoning of 415 N. Sappington to allow for the expansion of their small Downtown. It would be a short 10-minute walk from the nearest bus stop of the Downtown Kirkwood - Downtown Webster micro-transit route I pitched last fall!
- Editor of The Atlantic, Yoni Applebaum will give a talk on his new book, "Stuck", at the Clark Family Branch of the St. Louis County Library this coming Tuesday, March 4th, at 7pm. "Stuck" examines some of "the people and ideas [especially zoning] that caused our economic and social sclerosis and lays out common-sense ways to get Americans moving again." Applebaum is very smart, The Atlantic has had some of the very best coverage on the housing issue, and if you're interested in this sort of thing, I highly encourage you to attend!
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That's it for this week! Have a great weekend and talk to you all soon!
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