Iowa City residents will see future improvements to public transportation and street repairs with funding through Iowa City’s fiscal 2023 financial plan, with the goal to make city transit more environmentally friendly.

The Iowa City City Council adopted the fiscal 2023 financial plan at its March 22 meeting.

Iowa City City Manager Geoff Fruin said city staff considered the decrease in Iowa City Transit ridership, placing economic stress on the city when making the financial plan.

“As the pandemic carries on, we still haven’t recovered to full ridership levels that existed pre-COVID,” Fruin said. “Both those operations saw significant revenue losses.”

The Iowa City Transportation Department will see an increase of $280,000.

“The biggest impact from COVID was in our transportation service operation,” Fruin said.

The City Council recommended the Iowa City Transportation Department come up with ways to increase ridership.

Iowa City Councilor Janice Weiner said she is hoping the city can make transportation more environmentally friendly.

“In transportation, I think we’ve been fortunate to get a fair amount of funding in grants…if we can succeed to get ridership back up and make it greener,” Weiner said.

Fruin said city departments supported by property taxes, like the Iowa City Police Department, will not see a substantial increase in the fiscal 2023 financial plan.

“We are able to respond to the needs of the enterprise, or our utility accounts a little bit more, because they’re not dependent on property taxes,” Fruin said. “They’re dependent on the fees that we charge for those services.”

For the fiscal 2023 financial plan, city staff had to distribute more federal funding, such as the $18.3 million of American Rescue Plan Act money that the city received.

This does have a huge effect on the city’s budget, Fruin added.

“Those generally don’t have a significant impact on the budget because they are revenue and expenses out,” Fruin said. “So, you have to include those and incorporate those but they generally don’t put any more or less financial pressure on a particular budget.”

Financial plan allocates money for street repairs

The City Council also allocated most of the capital improvement financial plan, a separate project in the fiscal 2023 financial plan, to street improvement.

The capital improvement financial plan increases funding for street improvement by $1.84 million.

“The reconversion of Market and Jefferson be put back in the CIP so that we cannot have what can sometimes be a racetrack through town so that it’s not such a break in the town so that you can continue to that walkability,” Weiner said.

Looking to the future, Weiner said she hopes the city can be more walkable.

Weiner said the passage of the fiscal 2023 financial plan ensures the city is funded for projects that will improve the community.

“It means that we have to keep our eye on all these balls and make sure that and I think we’re doing a pretty good job of that and make sure that we don’t spend more than we have,” Weiner said.