The 2027 budget presentation and a reported software tax

Proposed 2027 City of Aurora budget: what the official documents show

Record-only comparison. Sources were retrieved on October 29, 2026 (UTC). Figure ids (F…) refer to budget_figures.json; "computed" marks a difference recomputed from printed figures and listed under comparisons in the same file. Nothing here assesses whether any figure or presentation is adequate.

Second pass (same day): the proposed 2027 budget document and its PowerPoint, which this review could not retrieve, were supplied from the other research agent's download of the City's official file addresses. Their sha256 values were checked against evidence/software-tax/MANIFEST.json before use (recorded in evidence/budget/MANIFEST.json under external_files_used). Section 8 reports what they show. Sections 1-7 keep the first-pass findings; sentences that the 2027 documents now settle are marked with a pointer to Section 8.

1. The City's 2027 announcement

• The City's news release of October 26, 2026 states: "The proposed budget is currently set at $603,696,865, which represents an $84,736,709 reduction compared to the 2026 fiscal year." (F001, F002)
• The release does not print the 2026 figure it compared against, does not say whether either figure includes carryovers, and does not say which funds the total covers (F001, F002). The 2027 documents answer these points (Section 8.1).
• It says the proposal "allows for a lessened reliance on one-time funding stopgaps to balance the budget, while beginning the longer-term work of bringing ongoing expenses into alignment with sustainable revenues". It gives no amount for either (F003).
• Other amounts in the release: Police budget +6.84 percent and Fire budget +7.80 percent, with no base amounts (F004, F005); the bases are General Fund department totals (Section 8.2). It also lists $9.8 million for lead service line replacement and $7.35 million for water mains (F006, F007), $7.35 million for neighborhood streets and $3.5 million for arterial and collector roads (F008, F009), and a $1.5 million payment to the Aurora Civic Center Authority (F010). It says the proposal "would keep the general tax levy flat" (F011).
• The words carryover, rollover, re-appropriation and encumbrance do not appear in the release.
• This review's own attempts to retrieve the proposed 2027 budget document (PDF, listed as 77MB) and its PowerPoint failed (see collection_failures). Both files were later supplied as described above and are analyzed in Section 8.
• Draft minutes of the October 27, 2026 City Council meeting record that "Mayor Laesch presented an address regarding the City of Aurora's budget" and that Chief Financial Officer Stacey Peterson "presented an overview of the City of Aurora's budget". The minutes text contains no figures (F161).

2. Which 2026 figure the stated reduction matches

• The 2027 total is $84,737,609 below the adopted 2026 gross total that includes carryovers (computed). That is $900 more than the printed reduction of $84,736,709 (computed). In the first pass no document checked printed $688,433,574. The 2027 proposed budget prints it as the "2026 ORIGINAL BUDGET" total in its Expenditure Summary by Fund (p. 262; Section 8.1).
• The 2027 total is $8,930,709 below the adopted 2026 net total that excludes carryovers (computed). The release does not make this comparison. The 2027 budget document prints the same figure as "After Prior-Year Carryovers Deducted ($8,930,709)" (F205; Section 8.1).
• At the same stage of the previous cycle, the October 15, 2025 proposed 2026 budget printed gross total expenditures of $596,088,959 and printed its 2026 carryover line as "xxxxxxxxx" (F020, F021). It stated the change from 2025 both "Before Prior-Year Carryovers Deducted ($163,575,079)" and "After Prior-Year Carryovers Deducted ($106,522,179)" (F023, F024). The 2027 total is $7,607,906 above that proposal-stage 2026 figure (computed).

3. How the 2026 budget moved from proposal to adoption, and its later amendment

Each step below is documented, and the steps add up exactly (computed):

1. Proposed on October 15, 2025: $596,088,959 in expenditures and $525,766,503 in revenues (F020, F025).
2. Late changes in Schedule 1, dated December 8, 2025: expenditures +$16,138,615 and revenues +$12,929,300 (F056, F057).
3. Carryovers in Schedule 2, "2025 to 2026 Carryovers": $75,806,900 in expenditures and $2,635,300 in revenues (F049, F050).
4. City Council amendment on December 9, 2025: +$400,000 in expenditures and +$400,000 in revenues "to be funded by a future amusement tax in 2026" (F060).
5. Adopted: $688,434,474 in expenditures and $541,731,103 in revenues (F070, F077).

• The December 8, 2025 Expenditure Summary prints carryovers of (75,806,400). That is $500 less than the Schedule 2 total of 75,806,900, which the adopted budget book uses (F047, F049, F071; computed).
• The December 2, 2025 final presentation stated "$687.9M IN EXPENDITURES (INCLUDES $75.7M CARRYOVERS)", "$541.1M IN REVENUE" and "$146.8M BUDGETED REVENUES AND FINANCING SOURCES FROM 2025 AND PRIOR". Its sub-bullets read "$75.7 MILLION IN CARRYOVERS", "PRIOR SURPLUSES GENERATED" and "TIMING DIFFERENCES IN EXPENSES" (F040–F042).
• For the Water & Sewer Fund, 2026 expenditures rose from $61,723,726 (proposed) to $74,603,326 (adopted). The $12,879,600 increase equals Schedule 2 carryovers of $12,572,600 plus a $307,000 late change (F030, F089, F053; computed).
• Ordinance O26-060 (Legistar 26-0539), passed September 22, 2026, is titled "Amendment #8 For The 2026 Fiscal Year". Its Exhibit A is headed "Budget Amendment No. 01" (F110, F111). The documents checked do not explain the two numbers. Legistar title searches found eight ordinances amending individual ward budgets for fiscal 2026 and no other annual-budget amendment.

4. General Fund (Fund 101), 2026, side by side

• The adopted General Fund includes $3,930,600 of expenditure carryovers and $153,600 of revenue carryovers (F051, F052). The slide shown on December 2, 2025 listed $3,813,100 of expenditure carryovers (F045).
• O26-060 added $5,223,400 to General Fund expenditures and $4,439,600 to General Fund revenues (computed).
• The July 30, 2026 review estimates expenses equal to budget. It shows a beginning fund balance of 30,074,473 and an ending fund balance of 30,123,572 (F121, F122). The adopted budget book estimated the January 1, 2026 balance at 28,000,000 and projected 24,549,339 at year end (F081, F085).
• In the September 24, 2026 review, revenues estimated above budget include state-shared sales tax ($41.4 million budget, $42.6 million estimate), home-rule sales tax ($34.7 million, $36.0 million) and income tax ($32.2 million, $33.8 million). Gaming tax is shown as $9.1 million budget and $9.0 million estimate, with "Projected Variance $100,000" printed without a sign (MY09 pp. 2–5).
• The Treasurer's report states "this is a cash-basis report". As of September 30, 2026 it shows a General Fund balance of $40,564,381.38 and cash of $46,462,379.55 (F130).
• Before the 2027 document was available, the only 2027 General Fund figure located was in the speaker notes of the July 30, 2026 review, a slide whose chart is titled "FINANCIAL FORECAST". The notes read "2027 $14.3Allocating home rule at 15 mil for General Fund and 15 Mil for Capital", "2028 $19.2 gap" and "2031 $28.5 gap", with no unit printed (F123). The same notes read "2026 $5.5 gap removed the gaming tax sub for attricon" (F124). The chart plots revenues below expenditures in every year from 2026 to 2031 (MY07 slide 21). These notes are stored in the Legistar attachment and are not on-slide text. The 2027 document's own General Fund figures are in Section 8.2.

5. What "carryover" means in each document

6. Operating, capital, carryover, transfer, fund-balance and one-time items as the documents state them (2026; 2027 in Section 8.3)

• Recurring operating revenue and expenses. No document checked labels revenues or spending as recurring, ongoing or one-time in a table (not_located). The Treasurer's report headings read "OPERATING GENERAL FUND REVENUES" and "OPERATING GENERAL FUND EXPENSES". Under that heading the report includes "Interfund Transfers/Deferred Inflows", budgeted at 3,331,000 for 2026 (F128, F129, F131).
• Capital. For 2026, the expenditure class "Capital" is $167,088,620 across all funds, and the narrative states "Capital projects total $163.1 million in the 2026 budget" (F095, F096). The documents do not reconcile the two figures. For 2027, the release lists capital items (F006–F009) but gives no capital total. The 2027 presentation lists a Capital Improvement Plan total of $82,602,900 for 2027 (F280).
• Carryovers. For 2026, $75,806,900 in expenditures and $2,635,300 in revenues, listed account by account in Schedule 2 (F049, F050). The largest fund totals are the 2025C GO Bond Project Fund ($25,100,000), the Water & Sewer Fund ($12,572,600) and the Capital Improvements Fund ($7,068,500) (F053–F055). For 2027, the budget message prints the carryover line as "xxxxxxxxxx" (F201; Section 8.1).
• Transfers between funds. For 2026, $12,117,835 is budgeted both in and out across all funds (F094). The "General Fund *" column (Funds 101 and 130) shows transfers in of 3,250,000 (F086). A late change added a $2,000,000 transfer from the Gaming Tax Fund to the General Fund, described as "Facilitate Attrition of Retiring Sworn Personnel" (F058). The Gaming Tax Fund note says "$7.5 will be transferred to the Debt Service Fund", with no unit printed (F099).
• Use of fund balance or reserves. For 2026, the adopted budget shows a combined deficiency of (146,703,371) across all funds, with fund balances projected to fall from 1,042,958,100 to 896,254,729 (F078–F080). The General Fund deficiency is (3,450,661) (F084). The "General Fund *" deficiency, which includes the Transformational Fund, is (10,802,961) (F087). The FY2025 audited balance sheet reports General Fund balance "Assigned … Subsequent Budget 10,802,961", within a total fund balance of 48,905,529 and unassigned fund balance of 16,585,486 (F144–F146). The two amounts are equal (computed). The audit report states that "management deemed the General Fund balance to be satisfactory at the end of 2025", against a stated minimum target of $27.9 million (F147). The budget book's Fund Balance Notes state for the General Fund: "The city will adhere to that policy in 2026." (F098)
• Other one-time funding or spending. In 2026, a "One-Time Off-Ramp Payment to ACCA to Assist with Budget Transition" of $2,000,000 was budgeted in the Gaming Tax Fund (F059). The City's November 14, 2025 release describes it as "a one-time 'off-ramp' payment of $2 million" (F160). The 2026 budget messages, proposed and adopted, state: "For too long, the city relied on developer incentives and one-time revenues to drive growth." The 2027 release refers to "one-time funding stopgaps" without amounts (F003).

7. Do recurring revenues cover recurring operating expenses?

• No document checked states whether recurring revenues cover recurring operating expenses, for the General Fund or for all funds. None separates recurring from one-time revenues or expenditures, so the documents do not give enough figures to show it. The 2027 budget message names the goal of "bringing recurring expenses into line with recurring revenues" without figures (F245, F246).
• Figures that bear on the question, without that classification:
• The 2026 adopted General Fund budgets expenditures $3,450,661 above revenues (F084). With carryovers removed from both sides, revenues exceed expenditures by $326,339, the same as the pre-carryover surplus on the December 2, 2025 slide (computed; F043). These revenues include a $2,000,000 transfer from the Gaming Tax Fund (F058).
• The two 2026 mid-year projections show a General Fund net of +49,099 (July 30) and ($0.6) million (September 24) (F122, F127).
• For FY2025, the audit reports General Fund revenues of $251.358 million and expenditures of $254.242 million. The fund balance rose by $6.825 million after transfers in of $15.929 million, transfers out of $8.675 million and $2.455 million of SBITAs issued (F140–F143).
• The July 30, 2026 forecast notes list a 2027 figure of "$14.3", described as a gap in the lines for 2028 and 2031, with no unit printed (F123).
• The 2027 proposal budgets General Fund expenditures $4,343,892 above revenues (F223). Its General Fund revenues include $3,750,000 of transfers in (F225, F226). The presentation separately lists 2027 "Total Adjustments for Balancing the General Fund" of 6,700,000 (F274; Section 8.3).
• For all funds in 2026, budgeted revenues are $146,703,371 below budgeted expenditures (F078). The budget book attributes drawdowns in individual funds to planned projects, bond-funded construction and similar uses (Fund Balance Notes pp. 59–60). The book does not classify these as recurring or one-time. For 2027, budgeted revenues are $26,421,396 below budgeted expenditures (F214).

8. The 2027 proposed budget document and presentation (second pass)

Sources:

• PROP27. The 2027 Proposed Budget, with a budget message dated October 15, 2026. The file has 1,176 PDF pages; pages after 279 are image-only and were read by OCR or from page images. Page numbers below are the printed numbers.
• PPT27. The 24-slide 2027 Proposed Budget PowerPoint Presentation.

Both are cited in place in evidence/software-tax/budget/.

8.1 Totals, carryovers and the document's own comparison with 2026

As printed in the budget message (p. vi, F200–F205):

• Does the $603,696,865 include carryovers? As the documents present it, no aggregate 2026-to-2027 carryover amount is included.
• $603,696,865 is the combined total of 2027 budgeted expenditures by fund (p. 10; F200).
• The budget message prints the 2027 carryover line as "xxxxxxxxxx" and the net total equal to the gross (F201, F202).
• The presentation labels the same total "$603.7M IN EXPENDITURES (BEFORE CARRYOVERS)" and revenue "$577.3M IN REVENUE (BEFORE CARRYOVERS)" (F270, F271).
• Carryover amounts inside 2027 line items. Two General Fund line items include amounts labeled "2026 - 2027 CARRYOVERS", together $130,000 (computed):
• $80,000 for "DRUG RELATED LE OPERATIONS", within a 2027 budget of 100,700 (p. 591; F250);
• $50,000 for "DUI & E-CITATION PROGRAMS", within a 2027 budget of 139,700 (pp. 592–593; F251).

The other carryover notes found list projects or programs without an amount of their own. In each of those accounts the 2027 column is either 0 or equals the sum of the other text amounts listed. For example, the Fire Station #4 account had a 2026 original budget of 22,500,000 and has a 2027 budget of 0 (p. 1109). The Transformation Fund lending-program account had a 2026 original budget of 7,144,400 and has a 2027 budget of 0 (p. 797) (F252, F253).

• The release's "$84,736,709 reduction". It is the "2027-2026 CHANGE" total of the document's Expenditure Summary by Fund (p. 262). That table compares the 2027 total with a "2026 ORIGINAL BUDGET" total of 688,433,574 (F208, F209). The budget message of the same document compares against $688,434,474 and prints ($84,737,609) (F203, F204).
• The $900 difference between the two 2026 totals matches the Ward #5 Projects Fund. The 2027 document prints its 2026 original budget as 700,300 (p. 261), while the 2026 budget book prints 701,200 (p. 57). Every other fund's 2026 original figure in the 2027 document matches the 2026 adopted documents (computed; tables.checks).
• The document's own comparison with 2026. The document states the change both before and after carryovers: ($84,737,609) and ($8,930,709) (F204, F205). The release cites a reduction of $84,736,709 and does not state the after-carryover figure.
• Revenues.
• The document states: "Total revenues projected for 2027 are $577.3 million. This is approximately $25.8 million or 4.7% higher than the 2026 Amended Budget." (F216)
• Recomputed: 577,275,469 − 551,437,503 = 25,837,966, or 4.69%.
• Against the 2026 adopted revenues the increase is 35,544,366, which matches the printed change on p. 30 (computed).
• All funds, 2027.
• Revenues 577,275,469; expenditures 603,696,865; deficiency (26,421,396).
• Estimated fund balance 846,261,000 at January 1, 2027; 819,839,604 projected at December 31, 2027 (F213–F215).
• The presentation describes the $26.4 million as "BUDGETED REVENUES AND FINANCING SOURCES FROM 2026 AND PRIOR", with sub-bullets "TIMING DIFFERENCES IN EXPENSES" and "DEBT PROCEEDS" (F272).
• The 2026 amended totals in the 2027 document. Expenditures 702,250,074 and revenues 551,437,503 (F210, F217).
• The revenue amendment (9,706,400) equals the O26-060 Exhibit A revenue amendments.
• The expenditure amendment (13,816,500) is 530,400 more than the O26-060 total (13,286,100). Of that, 165,400 is ward-fund changes; the remaining 365,000 is not explained in the documents checked (computed).

8.2 The 2027 General Fund (Fund 101)

Sources:

• 2027 proposed: p. 8 (fund balance summary), p. 27 (revenue summary), p. 259 (expenditure summary), p. 37 (transfers in) and p. 793 (transfers out, all 0) (F220–F231).
• Presentation slide 13 prints the same 2027 totals, with its "LATE CHANGES" lines blank (F273).
• 2026 columns: Sections 4 and 6.

• Change from 2026. Against 2026 adopted, General Fund revenues rise by 14,686,723 and expenditures by 15,579,954 (computed; both match the printed changes). The document states "The General Fund budget for 2027 is $269.1 million which is 6.1 % higher than in 2026." (F207); recomputed 6.14%. Against 2026 amended, revenues rise by 10,247,123 and expenditures by 9,939,904 (computed). The 2027 deficiency is 893,231 larger than the 2026 adopted deficiency (computed).
• Police and Fire. Slide 18 compares General Fund department totals, 2027 proposed against 2026 adopted (F278, F279). Police is $111,805,002 against $104,646,065 (6.84%); Fire is $71,143,096 against $65,996,122 (7.80%). These are the percentages in the release; recomputed values match.
• 2026 amended expenditures. The 2027 document's amended General Fund figure (259,208,204) is 416,650 more than O26-060 Exhibit A (258,791,554) (computed; not explained in the documents checked).
• "2026 ESTIMATED ACTUAL" columns. On the summary pages these show General Fund revenues of 200,834,951 and expenditures of 193,816,891. The same amounts appear under "2026 YEAR TO DATE" on the budget worksheets (F230, F231).

8.3 What the 2027 documents label one-time, recurring, ongoing, structural or "stopgap"

• Budget message, p. i. "Replacing aging watermains, repairing neighborhood streets, separating sewers, and bringing recurring expenses into line with recurring revenues may not produce headline-grabbing announcements." It also states: "The 2027 Budget continues our progress toward structural balance, where dependable revenues support ongoing expenses with reduced reliance on one-time funding to close recurring gaps." No amounts are attached (F245, F246).
• Word search. The full PDF was searched (text layer and OCR of all 1,176 pages), along with the PowerPoint text.
• "stopgap" and "nonrecurring" do not appear.
• "One-time" appears elsewhere only in a line item for "ONE TIME USE EQUIPMENT" (AED for AEMA trucks, $3,500; p. 564) and on the Phillips Park Splash Pad project sheet ("This would be a one time construction hit on the budget"; $220,000).
• "Structural" appears elsewhere only in building and training descriptions.
• "Ongoing" appears elsewhere mainly as the goal status "(Ongoing)" and as "Ongoing Program" on project sheets.
• "Balancing Allocation for the General Fund" (presentation, slide 14). The table lists "Total Adjustments for Balancing the General Fund" of 7,320,000 (2023), 8,280,000 (2024), 20,374,273 (2025), 2,000,000 (2026) and 6,700,000 (2027) (F274–F276).
• The 2027 items are "Transfer from Gaming Tax" 2,500,000, "Adjust Home Rule Sales Tax Allocation from Capital" 2,200,000 and "Adjust Home Rule Sales Tax Allocation from SHAPE" 2,000,000.
• The 2027 total is 4,700,000 more than the 2026 total (computed).
• Slide 11 is headed "PAST CONTRIBUTING FACTORS-BALANCING THE GENERAL FUND" and states "IN THE PAST FEW YEARS, THE MAYOR'S OFFICE MOVED FUNDS AROUND TO MEET THE DEFICIT IN THE GENERAL FUND" (F277).
• Neither slide uses the words one-time or stopgap.
• Home-rule sales tax allocation, 2027 (p. viii; slide 15). General Fund $21,883,000 (2026: 18,300,000); Capital Improvements 11,100,000 (2026: 9,400,000); SHAPE 6,000,000 (2026: 6,000,000); total 39,683,000 (2026: 34,700,000) (F260).
• Gaming Tax Fund (slide 19; p. 8). The slide lists a transfer of $2.5M to the General Fund, $600,000 to the Fiber Utility Fund, $634,700 for TIF debt service, ACCA $1.5M and parking deck maintenance $2M (F281). The fund's 2027 budget shows revenues 12,850,000 and expenditures 13,372,087, a deficiency of (522,087) (F238). Casino gaming taxes are projected at $12.0 million for 2027 (F261).
• Levies (p. x).
• "The levy for the General Fund … will remain unchanged."
• Pension levies "will increase by a combined total of $3.2 million" (F257).
• The 2026 levy includes "an $11.19 million component to help pay the debt service on general obligation bonds" (F258). The 2026 budget book stated $12.69 million for the 2025 levy (F259), a difference of −$1.50 million (computed).
• The release says property taxes for bond repayment and public safety pensions "are expected to rise".

8.4 "Carryover" and related terms in the 2027 document

• Budget message, p. vi. "Carryovers are items budgeted as expenditures in one fiscal year that are not spent and are then budgeted again in the subsequent fiscal year." The definition and the "new money" sentence are unchanged from 2026 (F206).
• Line-item notes headed "2026 - 2027 CARRYOVERS:" or "2026-2027 CARRYOVER". These appear on pp. 101, 102, 208, 591–593, 644, 646, 654, 797, 807, 872, 880, 1060 and 1109. They list projects or programs, in most cases without an amount. The two notes with amounts are F250 and F251.
• Capital project sheets.
• Bridge Rehabilitation and Farnsworth Avenue Reconstruction: "2026-2027 carryover request may be submitted".
• Sullivan Road: "2026-2027 carryover request to be submitted".
• Indian Trail Signal: "2026-2027 carryover request and accrual to be submitted".
• New York Street Bridge: "A small carryover may be processed but this is mostly being re-budgeted."
• Rehabilitation of WTP Site Components: "Partial Funding provided by a 2026 - 2027 Carryover."
• Upsize High Pressure Pump #3 (project I062): "Funding provided by a 2026 - 2027 Carryover. No additional funding needed." The same sheet lists a 2027 project cost of 250,000, from "Water & Sewer" (90,000) and "Grant-State" (160,000) (F254).
• "Rollover". "supplemented by a requested rollover of the anticipated $200,000 to be left in this year's project funds" (Pinney Deck project sheet; F255).
• Not found. "Re-appropriation" and "encumbrance" do not appear.

8.5 Expenditures by fund type and major fund: 2026 and 2027 side by side

"Adopted" is the 2026 budget book (equal to the 2027 document's 2026 original column except Ward #5). The carryover column shows Schedule 2 carryovers included in 2026 adopted. Amended and year-to-date figures are the 2027 document's columns. Every difference is computed. The full rows for each fund, and the revenue tables, are in budget_figures.json under tables.

• The 2027 column comes from pp. 8–10 and 259–262.
• Every column of the transcribed Expenditure Summary sums to the printed totals. The fund-type sums match the printed subtotals in both years (tables.checks).
• The last column subtracts 2026 carryovers only. No 2027 carryover amount exists to compare, because the 2027 line is "xxxxxxxxxx".
• Revenues by fund type, 2026 adopted to 2027 proposed (computed; tables.revenues_by_fund_type_2026_vs_2027):

What remains unanswered

Settled by the second pass and removed from this list: what the 2027 document shows, which 2026 figure the release used, whether the total includes carryovers, the base of the Police and Fire percentages, and the 2027 General Fund figures (Section 8). Still open:

• The 2026-to-2027 carryover amount. It is printed as "xxxxxxxxxx" and was not located.
• Other carryover amounts inside 2027 line items. Two General Fund line items include amounts labeled 2026-2027 carryovers ($130,000 together). Whether more such amounts exist was not established; OCR misreads could hide some.
• Why the 2027 document prints two different 2026 totals ($688,434,474 and $688,433,574). The only fund-level difference found is Ward #5 (700,300 against 701,200).
• Why some 2026 amended figures in the 2027 document differ from O26-060 Exhibit A. Examples: General Fund 259,208,204 against 258,791,554, and an unexplained 365,000 in the all-funds total.
• The amount and nature of the "one-time funding stopgaps" in the release and the "one-time funding" in the budget message. No amount is printed under either label. The presentation's "Balancing Allocation for the General Fund" table (2026: 2,000,000; 2027: 6,700,000) does not use those words.
• A recurring versus one-time classification of revenues or expenditures. None was found in any document checked.
• What was presented at the special Finance Committee budget meetings of October 20, 22 and 27, 2026 (items 26-0663 to 26-0666). No attachments or minutes documents were published in Legistar at retrieval. The October 29 meeting (26-0667) had not yet taken place. The PowerPoint linked from the release is not identified with any of these items.
• The unit and context of the July 30, 2026 forecast notes ("$14.3", "$19.2 gap", "$28.5 gap").
• A full-year all-funds projection of 2026 results. The 2027 document's "2026 ESTIMATED ACTUAL" columns hold year-to-date amounts.
• Why O26-060 is titled "Amendment #8" while its Exhibit A is headed "Budget Amendment No. 01".

Sources checked

Downloaded with curl and recorded with sha256 in evidence/budget/MANIFEST.json:

• Legistar API (JSON). Events 4964, 4965, 4966, 4919 and 4791, with their items. Matter records and histories for 15185 (25-0946, 2026 budget ordinance O25-095), 15841 (26-0539, O26-060), 15905 (26-0611), 15767 (26-0465), 15768 (26-0466), 15983 (26-0689) and 15984 (26-0690). Title searches for "Annual Budget", "udget", "evy", "2027", "Comprehensive Financial", "Audit", "Treasurer", "Mid-Year" and "Financial Review".
• Agenda PDFs. Finance Committee October 20, 22, 27 and 29, 2026; City Council October 27, 2026.
• Minutes PDFs. City Council December 9, 2025; Finance Committee September 10 and 24, 2026; Committee of the Whole October 6, 2026.
• Legistar attachments.
• 25-0946: 2026 final wrap-up presentation, Expenditures Summary, Schedule 1, Schedule 2, 2026 Revised Proposed Budget, Aurora Fire Department budget, Transformation Fund lending program.
• 26-0539: Exhibit A and the Development Services attachment.
• 26-0465: mid-year review PPTX, July 2026.
• 26-0611: mid-year review, September 24, 2026.
• 26-0466: FY2025 Annual Comprehensive Financial Report.
• 26-0689: Treasurer's Report, September 2026.
• 26-0690: Q3 2026 investment report.
• Official City files from Internet Archive captures, retrieved because the City site returns HTTP 403 to curl. The 2026 Budget, v/4, captured September 21, 2026. The 2026 Proposed Budget, captured October 16, 2025.

Supplied in the second pass and cited in place:

• evidence/software-tax/budget/2027-proposed-budget.pdf and 2027-proposed-budget-presentation.pptx.
• Both were downloaded by the other research agent from the City's official URLs. Retrieval times recorded in its manifest are 16:36:05Z and 16:35:57Z, both with HTTP 200. Their sha256 values match that manifest (verified 2026-10-29T17:45:48Z).
• Their sizes match the City page's listings of "77MB" and "801KB".

Read in the built-in browser, with page text saved under evidence/budget/captures/:

• The City news release of October 26, 2026, "City of Aurora Unveils 2027 Proposed Budget".
• The City news release of November 14, 2025 on the ACCA agreement.
• The City Finance "Budget" page, used only for the file links.

Checked, with no usable content:

• Legistar web meeting page for event 4964 ("Meeting Items (0)"; "Published minutes: Not available").
• Granicus player pages for clips 2252 and 2254 ("No documents available"); their caption files are empty.
• Your Voice Aurora home page (no budget links).
• Internet Archive listings for the 2027 files and the 2027 release (none).

Collection failures are listed in budget_figures.json under collection_failures. The 2027 files there are recorded as this review's own failed attempts, followed by the note on how the files were later obtained.

Search coverage.

• The 2026 budget book (461 pages) and the 2026 proposed budget (1,252 pages) are mostly image-based. Searches for carryover and similar terms covered their text layers, plus OCR of the pages cited above: budget process, financial policies, fund summaries, fund balance notes, overview by fund type, capital projects summary, budget ordinance and glossary. Other pages of those two books were not searched.
• The 2027 proposed budget was searched in full (text layer for pp. 3–279, OCR for all 1,176 PDF pages).
• Image-only tables used for figures were read from rendered page images and checked against the printed totals: the Expenditure Summary (pp. 259–262) and the transfer and carryover pages cited.

Software / SaaS tax: findings

Collected 2026-10-29, 16:27–17:15 UTC. Record-only. Machine-transcribed wording is marked "ASR". Timestamps are positions in the City's YouTube recordings (h:mm:ss), not clock times. Local paths are relative to this investigation folder. Every downloaded or captured file is listed with its sha256 in evidence/software-tax/MANIFEST.json.

Short answer

• Located. The tax was discussed at the City Council meeting of Tuesday 2026-10-27, 6:00 PM (Legistar event 4791), during the Mayor's Report. No remark about it was located in the auto-generated transcript of the Finance Committee budget meeting that afternoon (event 4966).
• Mayor John Laesch introduced it.
• Deputy Chief of Staff Nicholas Richard-Thompson presented a "Personal Property Lease Transaction Tax" (called the "PPL" tax). The slides describe it as an excise on the lease or rental of personal property used in the city, with "TAXABLE USE: Cloud software access" and "Aurora would Exempt tangible property (only SaaS)".
• The speakers named Salesforce, CRM software and Adobe as examples.
• 15% came up only as an example on an invoice: "If a software subscription, say costs $100 and the tax rate was 15%, the local business pays 115 to Adobe" (59:22, ASR).
• No rate appears on any slide captured.
• Illustrative yields were given at 1%, 2% and 5% on an assumed $25 million base.
• The slides show Chicago's rates (7.25%, 9%, 9%, 11%).
• Status: discussion only. No agenda item, Legistar matter, ordinance, resolution, committee action or vote was located.
• The Mayor said it had not been included in the 2027 budget.
• He asked whether the council wanted staff to investigate further. Council members asked for more information, and the Mayor closed with "we'll explore more" (1:25:33, ASR).
• Not located: no written proposal, memo or slide file, and no budget line, in Legistar, Granicus, the 2027 Proposed Budget or the City website.

1. What was located

1a. City Council, 2026-10-27 (event 4791): the meeting record

• Agenda and Legistar items (evidence/software-tax/agendas/4791_A_City_Council_26-10-27_Agenda.pdf; api/events/event_4791_items.json):
• The MAYOR'S REPORT (event item 193636) has no attachment and no agenda or minutes note.
• No item concerns a tax on software.
• Minutes status: Draft. "Published minutes: Not available" (re-checked 17:14:58Z).
• Granicus clip 2254 (3h 43m). Its published index puts MAYOR'S REPORT at 520 s (0:08:40) and PUBLIC COMMENT at 5205 s (1:26:45). The player shows "No documents available." Its caption file is empty (see section 5).
• City YouTube recording MUm_pgdi_4g, "Streaming LIVE: Aurora City Council Meeting | 10-27-2026": live 22:58:32–02:41:10 UTC, English auto-generated transcript, 1,712 segments. Three verbatim excerpts were saved and checked byte-for-byte against SHA-256 hashes computed in the page:
• evidence/software-tax/browser-captures/youtube_MUm_pgdi_4g_CityCouncil_2026-10-27_excerpt_A_24m36s-25m56s.txt: the Mayor announces the PPL tax item.
• ..._excerpt_B_33m05s-33m51s.txt: the Mayor hands over to the CFO, then the Deputy Chief of Staff on "alternative revenue options".
• ..._excerpt_C_53m52s-1h25m49s.txt: the presentation and the council discussion (249 segments).

1b. Slides shown during the presentation

These were read from frames of the City's YouTube recording (evidence/software-tax/browser-captures/frames/). No file of this slide deck was located.

• Slide 1 (frame 55:02): "Personal Property Lease Transaction Tax", with the City seal.
• Slide 2 (frames 57:57 and 59:45): "OVERVIEW / What the tax does / An excise on the lease or rental of personal property used within the city"
• "TAXABLE USE: Cloud software access. Aurora would Exempt tangible property (only SaaS)"
• "LIABILITY: The lessee is legally responsible for the tax."
• "COLLECTION: The lessor collects the tax and remits it to the City."
• "Exempt Entities: Government bodies, public schools, and certified charitable, educational, or religious organizations."
• Slide 4 (frames 1:00:02–1:00:57): "FISCAL CONTEXT / Chicago collections show a growing tax base / Aurora revenue remains illustrative until locally modeled."
• "CHICAGO COLLECTIONS ($M)": 2020 $344.1M / 7.25%; 2022 $602.3M / 9%; 2024 $701.3M / 9%; 2025 $936.7M / 11%.
• "AURORA OUTLOOK: Potentially significant. Could create recurring revenue for municipal infrastructure and services without increasing residential property taxes."
• The footer appears to read "October 19, 2026" (small text).
• Slide 5 (frames 1:01:45–1:13:58): "Other Considerations / Pair tested legal principles with targeted local protections."
• Denver and other Colorado home-rule municipalities "Apply local sales tax treatment to Software as a Service (SaaS)".
• Phoenix and other Arizona home-rule municipalities "Apply a transaction privilege tax to the rental of tangible personal property".
• New York, Texas, and Washington "Include SaaS within their broader state sales tax systems".
• Slide 3 was not seen: frames at 59:24, 59:45 and 59:48 show slide 2, and the frame at 59:50 shows slide 4.

1c. Attributed remarks (ASR wording, verbatim from the saved excerpts)

How speakers were identified:

• Mayor. Video frames at 24:51, 54:14, 1:02:42, 1:16:12 and 1:25:37 show the speaker behind the nameplate "JOHN LAESCH / MAYOR".
• Presenter. He self-identified as "deputy chief of staff Nicholas Rashard Thompson" (ASR). The City's Mayor's Office Staff page lists "Nicholas Richard-Thompson, Deputy Chief of Staff". The Mayor called him "Nick Thompson".
• CFO. Self-identified ("Stacy Peterson, chief financial officer", ASR). Legistar minutes spell her name Stacey Peterson.
• Aldermen. Identified by the chair's recognition as the ASR heard it, matched to the Legistar roster.

All 31 quotes in software_tax_sources.json → remarks were machine-checked against the saved excerpts. A selection:

• 25:01, Mayor Laesch: "Deputy Chief Staff Nick Thompson will come up at the end because we want to talk about a a PPL tax and before spending any time or resources from the city so the council has an idea of what that looks like."
• 33:51, Mayor Laesch: "After CFO Peterson presents, I'll ask the deputy chief of staff, Nick Nick Thompson, to give us a short update on alternative revenue options."
• 54:10, Mayor Laesch: "we're trying to find areas and ways that we can increase revenue without increasing property taxes. Um this is one of the options that Chicago has and I believe four other municipalities throughout the United States."
• 54:50, Richard-Thompson: "it is essentially a tax on the lease or rental of personal property within the city limits. Uh as the mayor stated, it is modeled off of Chicago's existing lease tax. They've had it for a decade."
• 55:14, Richard-Thompson: "It is primarily dominated by non-possessory kind of um leasing softwares. Uh and that's basically Salesforce, CRM, Adobe and kind of cloud softwares or SAS or softwares as a service. That's really what this tax is."
• 55:37, Richard-Thompson: "alongside vehicle and equipment rentals, ours would not include those".
• 57:47, Richard-Thompson: "The taxable use again is cloud software access. So uh software as a service. The reason why we're exempting tangible property is because of preeemption. The state in 2025 began taxing that Chicago's exempted ..."
• 58:18, Richard-Thompson: "The lease legally owes the tax. The vendor, the leaser is legally required to collect and send it to the city. ... The tax applies when the lease uses property or intangibles in Aurora, even if the lender is outside of the city."
• 59:22, Richard-Thompson: "If a software subscription, say costs $100 and the tax rate was 15%, the local business pays 115 to Adobe."
• 59:58, Richard-Thompson: "we did preliminary kind of cursory overview of this."
• 1:00:48, Richard-Thompson: "let's say our taxable base of this would be 25 million. It would generate 250,000 annually at 1%, 500,000 at 2%, and 1.25 million at 5%. modestly clearly under what Chicago is taxing".
• 1:02:03, Richard-Thompson: options he raised were "a sunset clause to do it for a year" and "other exemptions".
• 1:02:49, Mayor Laesch: "CFO Peterson has said that it would uh probably require a new staff position within finance to administer uh this new tax, but we h don't have any realistic projections as to what it would generate".
• 1:07:01, Richard-Thompson: "it might be like $15 on top of the hundred you might pay for Salesforce."
• 1:11:14, Alderman-At-Large Keith Larson: "I work at a SAS company."
• 1:12:48, Richard-Thompson: "New York, Texas, and Washington have passed uh software as a service kind of just general taxes."
• 1:14:36, CFO Stacey Peterson: "we would have to then also collect it on our own. It wouldn't be collected through um any form of the state ... which would require um a a software uh to maintain and then also um monitoring of it. And we would need I would say roughly probably one other additional staff".
• 1:15:46, Alderman Ted Mesiacos: "Is this to be considered in the budget?"
• 1:16:02, Mayor Laesch: "as of right now uh we have not included it because we haven't done adequate analysis the question I'm asking the council tonight okay is should we invest the time".
• 1:18:03, Alderman Daniel Barreiro: "I think you brought it up at the September 26 town hall. Is that correct? Cor correct. ... this could be considered in the for the 2028 budget."
• Other council members' feedback:
• Carl Franco (1:21:16): "we need a whole lot more information".
• Keith Larson (1:21:55): "I say we look into it more".
• Will White (1:22:09): "definitely we should look into it and explore".
• Patty Smith (1:23:30): "I've never woke up and said I want to be like more like Chicago".
• Edward J. Bugg (1:24:22): "three months from now end of January if you had some updated information".
• A council member the ASR records as "Alman Bait" (1:25:04) asked for comparison data from similar-sized municipalities. The roster includes Alderwoman Shweta Baid; not verified.
• 1:25:33, Mayor Laesch: "this is one of the options that might close the gap. We don't know if it will or won't. Uh we'll explore more. Thank you for the presentation."

2. Proposal details (from documents only) and legislative status

Source: the slides as displayed in the recording. No written proposal document was located.

3. Other jurisdictions (recorded as such, not merged with Aurora)

• Chicago.
• Described as the model: "modeled off of Chicago's existing lease tax".
• Slide 4 gives Chicago's collections and rates.
• The presenter said he "sat down with uh Chicago staff and another think tank" (1:04:36) and that "Salesforce already does this with Chicago" (1:06:43).
• At 1:00:31, "despite keeping it at 9% in 2022 and in 2024, they still saw an increase in revenue" was said while the Chicago slide was on screen.
• Denver and other Colorado home-rule municipalities; Phoenix and other Arizona home-rule municipalities; New York, Texas and Washington: per slide 5 and 1:12:48.
• State of Illinois: "The state in 2025 began taxing that Chicago's exempted" (57:55, the presenter's statement). This was not checked against statute.
• None of the figures or descriptions of other governments were checked against those governments' own records.

4. Related items located that are not a tax on software

• 2027 Proposed Budget, budget message, p. i (PDF p. 9, dated 2026-10-15): "we are evaluating potential revenue options, including a utility tax for high energy users like data centers. ... Exploring an option does not commit the city to adopting it."
• Budget revenue lines:
• 101-0000-313.01-01 GROCERY TAX: 2027 budget 4,314,000 (PDF p. 56).
• 101-1360-314.05-00 ENTERTAINMENT TAX: 2026 original budget 400,000; 2027 budget 0 (PDF p. 72).
• Decision package "OpenGov Tax & Revenue" (Revenue & Collection; 78,000 in 2027; PDF pp. 34 and 524): a cloud-based system the City would buy to administer local taxes.
• News release of 2026-10-26 ("City of Aurora Unveils 2027 Proposed Budget"): mentions "Flip The Rate" (data-center utility taxes, through state legislation) and "progressive revenue options". It does not mention software.
• City Council 2026-10-27, 33:22–33:44: the Mayor on working with state lawmakers and the Power Act to "flip the rate on an energy tax" for large-load users such as data centers (ASR).
• News release of 2026-10-05 ("Mayor Opposes 15% Water Rate Hike For Proposed TAP Program"): a 15% water-rate item, unrelated to software.
• Finance Committee 2026-10-20, 38:19–38:27: an alderman not named in the segments said "if we're going to give them a tax increase? Because I heard numbers floating around about 10%." No tax type was named.

5. Not located in the sources checked

• Any Legistar matter (2026) whose title or text concerns a tax on software, SaaS, cloud, computer software, lease or leasing, digital or streaming services, amusement, or a new tax. Checked: titles of 419 matters (MatterId ≥ 15290) and 493 matter texts via the API. No such matter is on the agendas of events 4964, 4965, 4966, 4919, 4986, 4791 or 4767.
• Any written proposal, memo, ordinance draft or slide file for the PPL tax. Checked:
• Legistar event items, attachments and meeting pages for the seven events.
• Granicus player documents ("No documents available").
• City Budget page (only the 2027 Proposed Budget PDF is listed).
• City news listing.
• 2027 Proposed Budget PPTX.
• Any rate, effective date or Aurora revenue projection in a document. Checked: the slides captured (1, 2, 4, 5) and the 2027 Proposed Budget (text layer and OCR of 920 image-only pages).
• Any minutes of the Oct 20–29 meetings. All show "Published minutes: Not available". Minutes status is Draft or Final with no minutes file.
• Any remark about a software, SaaS, cloud or PPL tax at:
• Finance Committee 2026-10-27, 2:00 PM (YouTube Rd21quVqnz4; three keyword searches of 1,220 segments).
• Finance Committee 2026-10-20 (VP-OSAxwdgs).
• Finance Committee 2026-10-22 (TAnkOqg4ElU).
• Committee of the Whole 2026-10-20 (ov6KtFPgtHQ).
• Special City Council 2026-10-20 (nk_qCFhgg_w).
• The City Council 2026-10-27 transcript outside 24:36–1:25:49 (public comment refers only to "new revenue" in general terms).
• Any City news release on a lease, software or SaaS tax (news listing as of 17:07Z).

6. Collection failures

• Legistar budget-review matters 26-0663 to 26-0667 (listed on the Finance Committee agendas) are not exposed by the API: $filter=MatterFile eq '26-0664' returns [], and MatterIds 15956–15962 return 404. They are not listed on the meeting pages ("Meeting Items (0)"), so their texts or attachments could not be checked. About 295 of the file numbers 26-0001 to 26-0705 are not visible through the API.
• Granicus clips 2251 and 2255 (not in the archive listing) redirect to PermissionDenied (HTTP 403). Which meetings they hold is unknown.
• YouTube caption files fetched directly (curl and in-page fetch) returned empty bodies. Transcripts were read in the browser's transcript panel instead.
• Town hall of 2026-09-26 ("Summer Civics Series: Finalized Budget Town Hall", 0L6_r1r15q8). Alderman Barreiro referred to it at 1:18:11. The transcript panel opened twice but loaded no segments, so it was not checked.
• Legistar "All agenda items" view could not be opened in the browser (a hidden control in a hidden pane), so non-legislation agenda items on the Finance Committee pages were seen only in the agenda PDFs.

7. Recordings: checked and not checked

Audio was not listened to and no independent transcription was made. Granicus publishes no caption text, so wording comes only from YouTube's auto-generated transcripts.

8. Method notes and limits

• Transcripts. They are YouTube machine transcription of the City's own recordings, read in the built-in browser. Names and numbers are often wrong ("Lash" for Laesch, "SAS" for SaaS, "Alman" for Alderman). Several passages carry no speaker label; Mayor attributions rest on the nameplate frames listed above.
• Budget PDF. 919 of its 1,176 pages have no text layer. They were read by OCR with macOS Vision (tools/software-tax/pdfocr.swift). OCR text was searched, not proofread, so a misread word could have been missed.
• Scripts. All are in tools/software-tax/: fetch.sh, scan_matter_texts.sh, search_matter_texts.py, pdftext.swift, pdfocr.swift, pptx_text.py, add_captures_to_manifest.py.

Sources checked

Full list with retrieval times and results: software_tax_sources.json → checked.

• Legistar API:
• Events 4964, 4965, 4966, 4919, 4986, 4791, 4767, with event items, attachments and notes: https://webapi.legistar.com/v1/aurora-il/events/{id}/eventitems?Attachments=1
• Matters with MatterId ≥ 15290: https://webapi.legistar.com/v1/aurora-il/matters?$filter=MatterId+ge+15290
• Matter versions and texts.
• Bodies and City Council office records.
• Legistar agenda PDFs: https://legistar1.granicus.com/aurora-il/meetings/2026/10/ (seven files).
• Legistar MeetingDetail pages: https://aurora-il.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?LEGID={id}&GID=308&G=DC7A6B50-7190-431C-A25A-5C223FFADE72 (seven).
• Granicus:
• ViewPublisher view_id=1.
• MediaPlayer and player pages for clips 2252 and 2254.
• captions.vtt for clips 2247–2250, 2252, 2254 and 2256.
• AgendaViewer for clips 2247, 2249, 2252 and 2254.
• Clips 2251 and 2255 (permission denied).
• City of Aurora YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@CityofAuroraIllinois):
• Streams list.
• Transcripts of Rd21quVqnz4, MUm_pgdi_4g, VP-OSAxwdgs, TAnkOqg4ElU, ov6KtFPgtHQ and nk_qCFhgg_w; 0L6_r1r15q8 failed.
• Video frames of MUm_pgdi_4g.
• City website (aurora.il.us):
• News release of 2026-10-26.
• News listing.
• News release of 2026-10-05 (TAP).
• Finance > Budget page.
• ACTV page.
• Staff Directory and Mayor's Office Staff page.
• 2027 Proposed Budget PDF: https://www.aurora.il.us/files/sharedassets/mainsite/v/1/finance/documents/budget/2027-proposed-budget.pdf
• 2027 Proposed Budget PPTX: https://www.aurora.il.us/files/sharedassets/mainsite/v/1/finance/documents/budget/2027-proposed-budget-presentation.pptx
• Not consulted: ilga.gov statutes, the City's Twitch channel, news media and social media.