URBANA — The city budget got final approval Monday night with a few last-minute changes as the city looks to add two officers to its police force.

The council gave preliminary approval to raise rates at campus parking meters from 75 cents to $1 per hour, which they expect to generate $105,000 annually in new revenue. If council members give their formal approval next week, the new rates would go into effect July 1.

The new price would be equal to the University of Illinois' rates and the rates the city of Champaign plans to establish on campus this summer.

That would help fund the two police-officer jobs, which may have been left vacant if not for the calls of residents in a southeast Urbana neighborhood who said they need more coverage to battle perceived rising crime rates.

Each police job is expected to cost about $78,000, which includes salary and benefits. Mayor Laurel Prussing had proposed to cut $71,000 in tourism-promotion funding for the Champaign County Convention and Visitors Bureau to cover the gap, but the council did not act on that plan Monday.

And that was the only provision that drew debate during the meeting. Prussing had questioned whether the CVB had a significant economic impact on Urbana.

"We sell Urbana every day," said Jayne DeLuce, executive director of the CVB.

DeLuce said the agency actively recruits and promotes economic activity in Urbana, which in turn bolsters hotels, motels and other businesses.

"Many times, it's a very extensive process where we're bidding against other communities," DeLuce said.

But Prussing said she has talked to hotel managers who could not distinguish any effect from the CVB.

"It has a negligible effect," Prussing said.

The council would still be free to amend the budget later in any way — which includes eliminating the tourism funds — to cover the remainder of the cost of the police jobs.

Other than the last-minute proposals, the rest of the city's budget has not drawn much comment. In presenting their budgets to the city council in recent weeks, many department heads said their figures were roughly the same as last year's.

Overall spending will increase 0.5 percent during the next fiscal year to $32.6 million. That leaves a $1.7 million spending gap, but officials say it the budget is balanced because the city typically spends less than it plans.