PEORIA, Ill. — The City of Peoria is waiting on political leaders in Washington D.C. to make decisions regarding a restructured budget for the city.
Peoria City Mayor Jim Ardis said at Tuesday’s council meeting that the council has not been avoiding responsibilities of the budget, but they have been waiting to see if the federal government was going to provide relief.
“I think what we’ve actually been doing is trying to see if there was going to be any relief from the federal government, which we haven’t received a dime yet, before we start the process of layoffs and furloughs,” said Ardis. “As it doesn’t look like that is going to be happening, we do have to look at what those options are going to be for us.”
Ardis added that it’s still possible to see a deal get done in Washington, but the Peoria City Council will look at things such as borrowing and state and federal relief in the coming weeks for ways the city can restructure the budget.
City Manager Patrick Urich said that the areas that will be closely examined in the restructured budget will be the public safety area and what type of borrowing package the City of Peoria would want to pursue, if any.
“I think we need to be prepared in two weeks to have those things placed in front of us to begin looking at how we’re going to shore the rest of this year up,” said Ardis.
