CITY FINANCES: A Casual Review of the Evansville Budget for 2024
By Johnny Kincaid
July 9, 2024
The City of Evansville spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually, and the city budget spells out how those dollars are spent. As we hit the halfway mark in the year, city department heads are already developing next year’s spending plan. In early August, Mayor Terry will present her proposed 2025 budget to the city council, and the budget will go through debate and revision before the final version is approved before November 1. 2024.
When Stephanie Terry was sworn into office six months ago, she was also given Lloyd Winnecke’s 2024 budget, which he presented to the city council on August 4, 2023. Winnecke’s budget included significant raises for the new mayor, her Deputy Mayor, Police Chief. and the City Clerk.
The projected expenses for 2024 are $230,798,048, and income this year is expected to be $237,939,425.
The city budget is easily accessible on the city website. There are two budget documents: the budget for projected income and the spending budget. Each budget sheet provides the actual amounts from 2020-2022 and the approved budgets for 2023-2024. There is also a separate section for the Evansville Water and Sewer budget.
The expense budget is 86 pages of numbers showing how much the city council approved to be spent on everything from salaries to office supplies in each department of city government. A request to reappropriate funds is made when it becomes apparent that more money is needed for a specific line item. To move funds from one line item to another requires approval from the city council. The city controller has requested batches of budget alterations seven times in 2024. Over $25 million has been transferred between accounts so far this year.
Mayor Terry has been operating under the budget that her predecessor devised. She has made some changes through the re-appropriation process and is now applying her priorities to creating her first city budget for 2025. This will certainly be a challenging process, considering that the budgets for the past couple of years have projected decreasing revenues.
This is the first installment in a City-County Observer series on spending by the City of Evansville. We’ll report on city income and how they spend our tax dollars. How much do city employees earn? Will we have a balanced budget in 2025? What happens if the city needs more money? How are we doing halfway through the year?
The City-County Observer provides this series to promote good public policy and financial responsibility.
