Facing a projected $9 million to $10 million deficit in Aurora’s general fund for 2027, city officials expect tough decisions ahead, according to a town hall budget presentation Saturday.
But unlike last year, when the city passed a budget with controversial staffing cuts to public safety departments, Aurora Mayor John Laesch said the city can’t “cut its way out” this year.
Laesch said the city is looking for other revenue streams and while its not ideal, property tax increases are not off the table.
“We had significant cuts in the 2026 budget, and we’re going to have to make harder choices again, see if the council has the appetite to raise taxes, or if we’re going to have to make some really, really hard choices,” said Laesch after the budget town hall at the Aurora Public Works Facility.
The Saturday event gave some insights into the city’s decisions for its proposed 2027 budget, such as general categories of the mayor’s priorities. Laesch said he plans to decrease funding to the Aurora Civic Center Authority, which saw controversial cuts last year.
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Laesch also said he might increase funding for departments he said his administration over-cut last year, such as the city’s facilities, development services and legal departments.
But, overall, Laesch and other officials asserted that the main picture is that the city has an “unhealthy” general fund and is struggling to find revenue to keep up with rising costs, especially increasing costs for employee salaries and insurance.
The over 40 area residents who attended the budget town hall Saturday asked questions about how to attract more businesses to Aurora, potential revenue from the ongoing special census, details about specific neighborhood projects, the city’s bond rating, the city’s infrastructure costs, casino revenue projections, the status of the old casino building, union contracts and city spending on certain items, among other questions.
The city’s projected deficit for 2027 has improved since reports from August, down from a $14.3 million projected deficit at the time for the 2027 general fund.
As of Saturday, the city’s 2027 revenue is projected to total $553.9 million, according to Stacy Peterson, the city’s chief financial officer, who attended the Saturday event. Just over 20% of that revenue would come from property taxes, one of the city’s largest revenue sources, she said.
The city has around a week left to make decisions so that a draft budget can be ready for the City Council to look at, ideally by Oct. 20, said Peterson.
Budget priorities discussed
Laesch and city officials announced a number of budget priorities at the Saturday meeting that concerned the Aurora Civic Center Authority, city departments and how to spend new revenue from the Aurora Hollywood Casino, among other issues.
Laesch said his priorities this year fall under four categories: core city services, infrastructure repair, downtown and the arts and clean energy and jobs.
While Laesch said downtown and the arts are a priority, he said “no one is discussing increasing funding to ACCA.”
The Aurora Civic Center Authority owns the Paramount Theatre, the Copley Theatre, Paramount School of the Arts and North Island Center, plus it manages the city-owned RiverEdge Park and Stolp Island Theatre.
Laesch said he wants overall downtown entertainment to continue and that it’s still a priority for the city is to make progress on revitalizing downtown.
But the goal is to continue ramping down funding to ACCA over time, he said. The city passed a budget last year without previously-communicated financial support to the Aurora Civic Center Authority. That decision was met with controversy and concern, as ACCA has had its own financial struggles.
“The goal has been to see ACCA’s budget stabilize and become self-sustaining, as most theaters do, and then, as their potential capital needs come up, look at addressing those,” he said.
Overall, Laesch said, core city services and infrastructure are a priority this year.
Laesch said the city is considering restoring some funding to departments he said the city cut too deeply last year. He said the city is also trying to address increased costs in overtime for the fire department, which he said are partly connected to the positions cut in the department last year.
As for infrastructure needs, Laesch said the city needs to address rehabilitating buildings downtown, improving the city’s fiber optic network and more.
He said the city has some important basic needs too.
“Making sure that everybody is fed, clothed, housed, has a way to get from school, to and from work,” he said.
He said, for example, the city is set to inherit two parking garages associated with the former Hollywood Casino’s downtown location that need maintenance. Laesch said the city plans to demolish the old casino building, but is waiting on whether to demolish the parking garages because there might be need for them downtown.
The mayor also said the city needs additional funding to keep up with increasing water main breaks and lead service line replacements. He said the pace of water main breaks rose by 50% this year and that the city needs around eight miles of water main replacement per year, compared to the 2.5 miles funded per year in the past.
Laesch and Brian Caputo, Aurora’s chief operating officer, said that other potential improvement projects funded in the upcoming budget include construction of a noise barrier on Orchard Road, redevelopment of the Broadway corridor and neighborhood street improvements.
The city is also in the middle of negotiations for two labor union contracts that could impact city costs — Aurora Firefighters IAFF Local 99 and AFSCME Local 3298, which represents municipal workers.
As for clean energy and jobs, Laesch said he wants to address rapidly increasing energy demands in the region and take measures to protect residential energy, but those efforts are farther down the road.
One measure, he said, could include putting a referendum question on a future election ballot that would ask residents if the city should build and maintain a city-owned electrical grid powered by renewable energy.
Increased gaming revenue spotlighted
Peterson and other city officials said at the meeting Saturday they do not plan to use increased revenue from the newly-opened Aurora Hollywood Casino resort to dig the city out of its budget hole, despite a few residents insisting they do that at the Saturday meeting.
Peterson said the city expects additional gaming tax revenue from the casino totaling to $9 million for the year and around $1 million a month after that.
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Peterson, Laesch and Caputo said they would like the casino revenue to only be used towards one-time costs or for aldermanic ward funds.
Laesch said he does not want to rely on an influx of gaming tax revenue from the casino to subsidize the general fund because he said that revenue may not remain consistent over time.
“Especially if the casino has this bubble they’re having right now when it’s new, just after it opened,” he said.
Laesch said the city’s gaming revenue “was designed for one-off capital projects and to be spent in the wards.”
‘We can’t keep spending’
As of Saturday, Peterson said the city was still reviewing department expenditure requests and preparing its draft budget for the Oct. 20 City Council Finance Committee meeting.
She said if expenditures continue to outpace revenue, she was worried the city could reach a potential budget gap of nearly $28.5 million by 2031 due to increasing costs for salaries and other expenses.
“Some of the revenues are increasing but a few of the others are decreasing and if we don’t raise property taxes or come up with a different revenue source … you can’t keep spending,” she said.
Laesch said the city is in the middle of a tough few budget years, where he said the city either has to increase revenue or make cuts.
“There’s no other way besides kicking the can down the road,” he said. “Everybody’s like, politically, it would be smart to not do anything, but that’s how we got here in the first place.”
All city departments saw some sort of funding cuts in the approved budget last year, which included the elimination of around 140 city positions, officials said. Some of those positions were not filled after people left for other jobs or retired.
Officials said the funding cuts last year were due to what they called structural issues with past years’ budgets. For years, Aurora had spent more than it brought in, and money was moved from long-term needs to cover operational costs, according to Caputo.
This means certain funds for long-term needs, like insurance and capital projects, were running extremely low last year because they had been used to help supplement the general fund, Caputo said last year.
The city made efforts last year to replenish long-term funds and plans to continue doing so this year, Laesch said Saturday.
City officials at the meeting Saturday encouraged residents to continue “following the money” by reading budget documents and expenditure approvals on the city’s website and by attending the City Council Finance Committee meetings, which take place at 3 p.m. on the second and fourth Tuesday every month at City Hall in downtown Aurora.