Geneva council looking for budget trims small and large

Less money for flowers. Fewer new bike racks downtown. No new bench for tired shoppers on Third Street.

Geneva aldermen, meeting as a committee of the whole Monday, took paring knives to budgets for 19 special purpose funds. It's part of the work on the city's 2009-10 budget, which will be adopted in April.

They include funds for the cemeteries, commuter parking, pensions and several special service areas.

And while many of the expenditures are almost untouchable - such as state-required pension fund contributions - aldermen made the point that in these lean times, no other item is too small to be reconsidered.

Such as flowers for the 50 beds and planters throughout downtown planted and maintained by the Geneva Beautification Commission and other volunteers. City staff had recommended kicking in $10,000 for plants, about two-thirds of the cost, some from the streetscape/beautification budget and some from the general fund. The GBC gets donations for the rest.

Alderman Dorothy Flanagan, liaison to the GBC, offered to cut $5,000 worth of greenery out of the streetscape and beautification budget.

That touched off nearly 90 minutes of discussion about the value of keeping up appearances in the downtown area to encourage commerce, whether a sidewalk near Williamsburg Elementary School should be plowed by the city in the winter, whether city parking lots downtown could get by another year without a fresh sealcoating and more. Eventually aldermen took Flanagan up on her offer, with only one, 1st Ward Alderman Chuck Brown, voting "no."

The aldermen also voted to cut $1,000 for bicycle racks and $5,000 for benches out of the streetscape budget, with Brown again voting against.

An additional bike rack near the Metra commuter station, however, survived. It will be paid for from the commuter parking budget.

"I think cutting back on our investment in the downtown is the wrong thing to do ... just because this is a bad year, this is the one place we should not reduce our investment," said Brown, whose ward covers much of the downtown.