Evanston budget, football and Al Jazeera

What’s in Evanston’s proposed 2025 budget? What led to the Wildcats’ dominating performance against Maryland football? The Daily answers these questions and recaps other top stories from the last week.

EDWARD SIMON CRUZ: Evanston City Council will discuss its proposed 2025 budget.

Northwestern football dominated over Maryland 37-10.

And NU’s Qatar campus has ceased operations with Al Jazeera.

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Edward Simon Cruz. This is The Weekly, a breakdown of our top headlines from the past week.

Our first guest today is Isaiah Steinberg. He’s an assistant city editor who’s covered some of the changes in Evanston’s proposed 2025 budget.

So the city released the budget on Friday, Oct. 4, and it totaled just under $400 million — $398 million, to be exact— which, for context, is about $9 million less than the city’s adopted expenses from 2024. What were some of the key changes between the 2024 and 2025 budgets?

ISAIAH STEINBERG: So the $398 million figure is including operating transfers out, and that is a decrease of about $9 million from last year. Revenues have also decreased from about $336 million down to about $319 million, excluding operating transfers, and the decrease in revenues is largely due to bonds issued in 2024 that will be spent on capital projects in 2025, and the reduction in expenses is largely due to large-scale projects like the water intake project on Lake Michigan moving closer to completion and fewer funds from the American Rescue Plan Act for the city to appropriate.

And with the current difference between revenues and expenditures, not including operating transfers, the city will be operating at a deficit of approximately $23 million dollars or so this year for 2025 based on the proposed budget, and they will be dealing with that deficit by spending money from one-time permit revenue such as the Northwestern Ryan Field project.

EDWARD SIMON CRUZ: You mentioned the Rebuild Ryan Field project. That’s one of the reasons that the city was able to keep the property tax levy flat, because of the one-time permit revenue from the University. And that’s according to Clayton Black, the budget manager, who spoke at the Finance and Budget Committee meeting on Tuesday, and we learned some other stuff about the relationship between property taxes and the General Fund. What should Evanstonians know about that relationship?

ISAIAH STEINBERG: So first of all, the General Fund is the portion of the city’s budget that funds day-to-day city operations. So that goes into things like salaries, pensions and just day-to-day operations — you know, police, fire, everything like that, city services like trash.

So the General Fund is up this year. Revenues and expenditures are up — they’re just about equal, so very little difference there. They’ve increased at a pretty normal rate. The property tax levy, though, has remained pretty much unchanged since about 2020.

Another thing we learned at the Finance and Budget Committee meeting is that the General Fund balance at the end of the year is projected to reach almost zero by 2027 if the city is unable to increase its property tax levy and if the city reduces its staff vacancy rate. And so the city is currently considering some different proposals to increase revenue. That was also presented at the meeting, and we covered that, but that was a pretty alarming forecast, so that’s due to stagnating revenue from sales taxes as well as the flat property tax levy. And so the city is going to need to come up with some innovative ways to increase revenue by 2027 to avoid that.

Ultimately, that would be a very negative forecast because it would lower the city’s reserves. The city would have to start increasing taxes drastically to create some more reserves, and they’d have to consider more ways to get one-time revenue, so it’s very important that the city has these reserves. Currently, they’re projecting about $40 million at the end of 2025 and the General Fund balance, which is already a decrease, and so they’re looking to hopefully maintain some of those reserves by increasing revenue for next year’s budget.

EDWARD SIMON CRUZ: And we also saw that the city is representing budget numbers differently now. That’s putting it more in line with other communities. It’s following recommendations by the Government Finance Officers Association. What are these big differences looking like?

ISAIAH STEINBERG: So, I think one of the main issues that the city was hoping to address is the issue with double counting. So the way that manifests itself is, the city records interfund transfers on its budget, which — interfund transfers are essentially money that is transferred from one city department to another, and one thing that can happen is that when these transfers are recorded in one fund as expenses and then as revenues in another fund where the money is transferred to — that can lead to what the city calls double counting, and ultimately, including those numbers in the budget can artificially inflate the total that most people see for the budget.

One thing that the Government Finance Officers Association recommended this year is that the city no longer list its contributions to the public safety pension funds, so the Police and Fire Pension Funds this year, and so that can cause the budget to seem a lot lower than it actually is this year.

One thing is, if we had represented the budget the same way that we had represented it in previous years here at The Daily, the budget would have been listed as about $428 million, which would have been a decrease from about $438 million last year, but that’s including the interfund transfers and also the contributions to the pension fund in expenses. So when you exclude the pension fund contributions this year, you see a number that’s more like the $398 million that we’ve been referencing. And then if you also exclude the interfund transfers, you get the city’s expenditures that it lists, which is $342 million.

So in reality, the budget is just slightly down. It hasn’t changed too much. But due to the way that the city is representing their budget this year, it appears that the budget may have decreased much more than it actually has.

EDWARD SIMON CRUZ: Evanston City Council is going to be discussing the budget more at its meeting today.

That was Isaiah Steinberg, our assistant city editor giving us some updates and things you should know before that meeting about the Evanston city budget.

My next guest today is Gameday Editor Jake Epstein, joining us from beautiful Maryland, and he was in College Park on Friday night for the Wildcats’ dominating 37-10 victory against the Maryland Terrapins.

The Wildcats are now 3-3, secured their first win in the Big Ten. After the ’Cats’ defense was their weak link last week against Indiana, redshirt junior defensive tackle Carmine Bastone came back. The ’Cats set up some strong linebacking plays, ultimately forced four turnovers. What happened this week that helped the ’Cats perform better than they did against Indiana?

JAKE EPSTEIN: Well, first off, good morning, Edward. It’s a pleasure to be back on The Weekly. But, you know, the defense really showed significant signs of improvement, really from the jump, Friday night in College Park.

I was particularly impressed with the play of two redshirt freshman corners. Josh Fussell, who was played on the outside a lot more at corner instead of Evan Smith, played a really standout game, especially against some tough receivers that Maryland has in Kaden Prather and Tai Felton. But I was also particularly impressed with the play of Damon Walters, who on special teams recorded a fumble recovery and recorded his first career interception as well. I thought that across the board, (redshirt sophomore defensive back) Theran Johnson, the leader of the secondary, was pretty spectacular.

There (were) no real big plays given up, and Maryland is an offense that can hurt you, especially through the air with a lot of plays that can gas you. They just did not get to that. They had sustained drives, but they did not have any real big shot plays where Northwestern was put on its heels. And (coach David Braun) touched on this in his postgame presser, but the defense addressed a lot of the issues we saw against Indiana. There were some tough conversations between the position group coaches; between defensive coordinator Tim McGarigle; between the safety coaches; between the cornerbacks coach, LaMarcus Hicks.

I mean, there (were) a lot of ways that they addressed the issues at hand, and we saw significant signs of improvement from this defense. And I think that moving forward, they’re going to be tested this coming week against Wisconsin. That’s an offense that’s spectacular. But it’s no longer a dead-in-the-water situation, where you’re coming off of a game against Indiana, where you give up seven straight (scoring drives). No. This is a defense that got stops, that forced four turnovers against a team that going into this game, I believe, had two turnovers all season. So there was significant size improvement on the defensive side of the ball, and that’s a very promising sign for the ’Cats.

EDWARD SIMON CRUZ: Offensive coordinator Zach Lujan also prepped some shot plays for redshirt sophomore quarterback Jack Lausch. Redshirt junior kicker Jack Olsen wasn’t at the game on Friday, but in his place stepped in redshirt junior punter Luke Akers.

And of course, you’re not the only one who made a homecoming — (redshirt sophomore defensive end) Anto Saka came back home on Friday night. Can you break that down a bit more for us?

JAKE EPSTEIN: First off, shoutout Anto Saka, a native of Phoenix, Maryland. 21131, the greatest ZIP code in the greatest state in the United States of America. But, you know, I figured the offense did not have a game where it was a banner game per se. There was a long period of time where Lujan’s unit went without a first down. But Jack Lausch did exactly what was asked of him. (Graduate student wide receiver) Bryce Kirtz had just three catches, but he had over 100 yards. And (graduate student wide receiver) A.J. Henning did what he had to do as well — I mean, he created separation, had that big 40-yarder early to spur that Jack Lausch rushing touchdown and put the ’Cats on the board.

But offensively, it was not a game where you’re going to be like, “Okay, this unit is a finished product.” No, it’s a work in progress. Jack’s a young quarterback who’s still coming into his own. But I think there’s a lot of promising signs on the offense, and once (graduate student running back) Cam Porter gets more time removed from that injury that ruled him out of that Washington game, I think the more and more we’re going to see him get touches, the better this offense is going to look, because this offense is spectacular with the ball in Cam Porter’s hands when he’s churning.

In terms of Anto Saka’s comeback, he was dominant being in this game. I think he may have had some slight knocks that he picked up, but there were plays where he was throwing offensive linemen around. He was a physical presence on every down, and he was playing a lot more downs than usual. Usually he’s a guy who only plays on passing downs, but Friday night he was doing a lot. He was in for, I believe, one of his largest snap shares of the season.

And let’s talk kicking, because shoutout Alex Cervantes, former sports editor and a big fan of special teams. I was particularly enamored with the play of Luke Akers, especially given the fact that he hasn’t kicked a field goal — he hasn’t scored a collegiate point since his high school days in Nashville, Tennessee. I mean, Jack Olsen is a guy, the milkman — the ’Cats fans love him, but he’s a guy that doesn’t have the range beyond, like, 45 yards. Luke Akers can kick the ball a mile. I wasn’t exactly sure what his accuracy would look like, but everything was dead center. He nailed three field goals, four extra points. I mean, Luke Akers outscored the Terrapins Friday night in College Park. So if you want to chalk that up to the scoreboard: Luke Akers 13, Maryland 10.

I think that in this game, we saw significant strides on the offense, Anto Saka had a dominant homecoming and Luke Akers very well might be a special teams legend at this point.

EDWARD SIMON CRUZ: The ’Cats come back home Saturday to face Wisconsin, final lakeside game of the season. To kind of bring things together, what should fans look out for as they prepare for this particular matchup?

JAKE EPSTEIN: I do think that it’s going to be a challenging game, and it’ll be interesting to see how Jack Lausch adjusts now that he’s got that first Big Ten win, first road win under his belt. I think Jack is definitely a storyline to follow just because the progression of your young quarterback — this could be the future of this program. And if he continues down this trajectory that he’s been (on) — mind you, with a minor blip against Washington — I think that there’s a lot of promising signs for ’Cats fans moving forward.

EDWARD SIMON CRUZ: Jake Epstein, Gameday editor, joining me from Maryland, his home state, to recap a game in his home state: the ’Cats’ 37-10 victory against the Maryland Terrapins. NU next faces the Wisconsin Badgers at home Saturday.

Here are the other top headlines from the week:

Northwestern University in Qatar is no longer collaborating with Qatar-based news network Al Jazeera. The news organization has been criticized over the country’s connections to Hamas.

According to city officials, the 6th Ward received four times as many rat complaints in September as it did in January.

Rico Nasty headlined A&O Productions’ annual Blowout.

The New York Knicks waived former Wildcats guard Boo Buie two days after signing him.

And two people were injured after falling into a window at the store Accents Plus.

From The Daily Northwestern, I’m Edward Simon Cruz. Thanks for listening to another episode of The Weekly. This episode was reported and produced by me, Isaiah Steinberg and Jake Epstein.

The audio editor of The Daily Northwestern is me, Edward Simon Cruz. The digital managing editors are Carlotta Angiolillo and Sasha Draeger-Mazer. The editor in chief is Jacob Wendler.

Our theme music is “Night Owl” by Broke for Free, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License and provided by the Free Music Archive.

Email: [email protected]

X: @edwardsimoncruz

Email: [email protected]

X: @IsaiahStei27

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X: @jakeepste1n

Related Stories:

— Evanston proposed 2025 budget down $9.3 million from 2024

— Football: Northwestern dominates Maryland 37-10 on the road to secure first Big Ten win

— NU-Q ends collaboration with Al Jazeera

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