FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE) — Fort Wayne is moving toward approving its 2025 budget of nearly $250 million. City Council has to approve the budget, and the process consists of budget meetings on Oct. 1 and Oct. 8 with final approval coming on Oct. 22. On Tuesday night, councilmembers heard from Internal Audit, the Parks Department, Public Works, Traffic Engineering, Community Development and the Consolidated CommunicationsPartnership of Allen County, Indiana and the City of Fort Wayne (CCP). Internal Audit "Internal Audit does performance audits throughout the city and utility," said Tracy Neumeier, the department's director. "We're fully staffed at three people." The only real questions the department received were from At Large Councilman Marty Bender, who asked whether or not the county had an internal audit department which Neumeier responded no. "I believe that the county auditor's office would look at things with an internal audit eye if they needed to," Neumeier said. The Internal Audit Budget can be seen below. auditDownload Parks and Recreation Fort Wayne Parks and Recreation came with a budget featuring new positions and securing short-term employees. "We're proposing adding three to our headcount two, in our forestry division one in our facilities," said Steve McDaniel, Parks and Recreation director. "Additions in our 5100 also include adding to our seasonal wages to stay competitive with the private market. The department is continuing to tackle large projects while painting all of the city's parks and fielded a question that updated City Council on the progress of the renovated golf course at Foster Park. "What you see happening right now is not golf course improvements, it's tied to that City Utilities project," McDaniel said. "We're still fundraising for the master plan process." The Parks Department Budget can be seen below. parks-and-recDownload Public Works Public Works has an interesting wrinkle in its budget. While most departments have capital improvement planned out years ahead in their budget, Public Works only plans out road repairs one year in advance. City Controller Garry Morr says that's because of the constantly changing conditions of roads. LIST: Every road Fort Wayne has budgeted to fix in 2025 That said, improving infrastructure is a big focus in this year's budget, the Public Works department will receive nearly $15 million for the cause. "We want to spread the wealth throughout the community, not just in select areas," said Public Works Director Shan Gunawardena "We have a very data-driven process, we can defend every single project that we select to invest in." Each road that the department is expected to repair is already budgeted for the year outside of Public Work's direct budget and in the capital improvement plan. The Public Works Department Budget can be seen below. pubworkDownload Traffic Engineering Gunawardena also presented the budget for Traffic Engineering, and City Council had no questions for the department. The budget for Traffic Engineering can be seen below. Traffic-EngineeringDownload Community Development "Our budget like a lot of departments pretty similar to last year," said Jonathan Leist, Community Development director. "We're hoping to add staff people to assist with neighborhood communication." Those new positions that the department wants to get funded will help keep the new Engage Fort Wayne page updated with current content. "It's a really great tool and I think we're just scratching the surface," Leist said. The department is also adding a position to deal with homelessness. Outside of the actual budget for the department, they are eyeing a potential $6 million expenditure over three years to improve Oxford Street in the city's capital improvement plan. "For 2025, we would love to do another streetscape project building off the momentum in the Southeast Strategy, that was another major corridor (Oxford Street) in southeast that would make sense to improve," Leist said. "To put it into perspective, we haven't spent $6 million on Pontiac and you've seen between the two phases what we've been able to do there." The money is conceptual at this point, but Leist is excited about what his department could do with so much money. The budget for Community Development can be seen below. Community-DevelopmentDownload The Consolidated Communications Partnership of Allen County, Indiana and the City of Fort Wayne (CCP) The CCP saw more pushback than another department Tuesday night, with 2nd District Councilman Russ Jehl alluding to the fact that City Council may not fund them at all. "My understanding is because the county has less internal resources ... a (911) call from the county requires more time in the workload in this call center than a call to the city," Jehl said. "My understanding is that if this were to be looked at from a workload perspective, time perspective resources perspective - it would not be an 80/20 split it would be closer to equal." The CCP is a joint effort between the city and county receiving 911 to help dispatch, but Jehl and others think the service isn't worth what the city is paying and may stick the county with the full bill, something Jehl says the county is doing with Three Rivers Ambulance Authority (TRAA) right now. "It would look very similar to the opposite side of the coin where the city and the county have an operating agreement for TRAA, but only one entity pays for its bill," Jehl said. "The shoe would just be on the opposite foot." The budget for The Consolidated Communications Partnership of Allen County, Indiana and the City of Fort Wayne (CCP) can be seen below. R-24-09-16Download