Public safety, airport renovations prioritized in Jefferson City’s 2025 budget

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Jefferson City Council held a work session Thursday evening to discuss the fiscal year 2025 budget.

Mayor Ron Fitzwater presented his $86.4 million budget plan to the council members, marking the first time the city has used the OpenGov software for financial planning.

"So it's the first year that we've utilized that system and it seems like it's going to be very good," Fitzwater said. "Not only internally, but once we get the system implemented. There will be resources that the public can log in to our website and go into,"

Prior to the meeting, Fitzwater said includes cuts in certain departments. Ward 1 Councilman Randy Hoselton described the budget as "It's very conservative. It's not irresponsibly optimistic, but also it, it tackles a lot of the challenges that we do have so far,"

The council has been working on the budget since May.

"I fully support it," Ward 5 Councilman Mark Schwartz said. "I think we were living in a time of you know, real question marks. With the election on the horizon, sales starting to retreat after all the COVID money is going away. So I think some tough decisions were made. Those decisions are going to continue to get tougher as we move forward,"

The largest budget allocations include $13.7 million for police, $10.6 million for the fire department and $6.9 million for public works, according to information presented at the work session.

Fitzwater also proposed increasing the airport's funding by over $16,000 over the previous year's budget, emphasizing the airport's role as a key economic driver for the city. Schwartz, who also serves on the Airport Advisory Committee, noted that renovations are long overdue.

"Jet traffic is up. We just appropriated $10 million for a new tower. We got a $200,000 appropriation now to fix up the grounds. It's very, very important. It's very vital to this city," Schwartz said, adding that the land has been purchased, a site selected, and construction bids are out. Groundbreaking will begin once the bid is awarded.

Another work session is planned for Monday.