The city faces around a $2 to $2.5 million deficit and will likely have to make some cuts into the budgets of many city departments. This comes in addition to about $9 million in cuts of the now $68.4 million budget that have been closed over the past couple of years.

“Only this time, the cuts will likely be felt by the public,” said Marci Dodds, District 4 council member

City fire and police departments will most likely take a hit, and some staff and service reduction seems an inevitable outcome.

Fire Chief Doug Forsman said nobody really knows for sure what changes the council will agree on, but they will not have to go as far as closing an entire fire station.

A potential move by the council would move the required minimum of firefighting staff on duty down from 27 to 25, which would reduce the number of available companies from nine to eight. A station in west Champaign would likely suffer in this exchange.

“It would likely have to make some layoffs to the second staff that would slow down the response time to the community if the first staff were on call,” Forsman said.

The move reduces the amount of overtime firefighters receive which could result in about $400,000 in savings.

“It’s not something you like to see, but the city is facing significant issues,” Forsman said.

The police department could potentially lose employees from their front desk, records department and a possible layoff of a sworn officer.

Also on topic is a voluntary furlough program the council is looking to implement for the city’s American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees workers, Dodds added. The council is hoping this program could result in around $100,000 in savings in the budget.

Michael LaDue, District 2 council member, said the council will have a lot to discuss, and some council members feel differently about where a bulk of the cuts should come from.

“I understand that we could cut about 2 to 5 percent of all non union employees that make over $100,000 salaries, then we could save ourselves somewhere around six figures,” LaDue said.

Another topic in front of the council will be a voluntary separation incentive program which would give city employees the option of a buyout.

Cuts would be applied to this year’s budget which ends in the fiscal year of July 1. That date could bring an additional round of reductions once the council approves a new budget is this spring.

The city council will convene at 7 p.m. at Champaign City Hall, 102 N. Neil St.