Last week Springfield's city manager asked all city departments to cut their budget by 7%.

He's hoping to make up a $5,000,000 shortfall in the police and fire pension fund.

Wednesday night city departments released their first recommendations.

How will these cuts impact you? If this first round of recommendations were implemented at face value, the answer is, in the form of less police protection, slower fire response, higher insurance rates and more criminals on the streets.

Let's start with fire. That department recommends closing one fire station. According to the fire chief this would slow the districts overall response times. Lower response times could mean a higher insurance rate for you.

In his budget cut recommendations police Chief Lynn Rowe suggests eliminating two officers designated for park central square and one officer dedicated to Commercial Street. His cuts would also eliminate a DWI enforcement officer and two traffic accident investigators. That last cut means the department would only investigate injury or fatality accidents... So if you're involved in a fender bender - you won't have a police report for your insurance claim.

The municipal court department head is suggesting eliminating the night court program. That would increase the time it takes for cases to go to trial.
He also proposes cutting some funding for the public defender program.
That means some criminals facing jail time could instead be fined and set free.

If you think these cuts present a lot of legal issues, don't look to the city attorneys office to step in. City attorney Dan Wichmer suggests if a position has to be eliminated from the law department then it should be his.

In his recommendation Wichmer says “I hired most of the department and they all gave up lucrative private practices to work here. I will not throw one of them overboard.”

The first budget workshop, where these recommendations will be discussed is March 17th at the Missouri Career Center.

You may read the draft documents online by following this link.