“Obviously throughout the year you can make those adjustments as the year goes on" said Finance Director Michelle Greis. "And revisit some of the expenditures or maybe even some of the projects or things we had planned and not do some things, if we start to see revenue decreasing or we start to get a little nervous about that.”
For many municipalities, the financial performance has been better than expected since the pandemic began.
“Ultimately we’re going to have to play it by ear as the year goes by,” Trustee Steve Schramm told the Journal-News. “All we can do is reflect on what’s happened so far this year, we had the gloom and doom predictions in March and none of those have come true.”
On the expense side Trustee Tom Farrell said there are aren’t any out of the ordinary expenditures or big purchases planned for next year.
“I think a lot of people believe that if it’s in the budget we spend it, we don’t,” Farrell said. “We’re very good at every expense that comes up, when it’s time for it to be spent we look, we shop, we decide if it’s absolutely necessary or it can wait.”
Township Administrator Kristen Bitonte said the township significantly reduced the expenditure line item for the proposed Millikin Road interchange project from $1.25 million to $310,000, because the next steps will be phased. The cost for next year is for preliminary engineering.
The Millikin Road interchange project has long been a top priority for the trustees and they just learned the preliminary cost for a full interchange and improvements to surrounding roadways is about $72 million. Roadway system improvements alone would cost $64 million.
A year ago during budget talks the trustees discussed possibly taking advantage of a new state provision that allows local jurisdictions to increase fees for vehicle registrations by an extra $5. The coronavirus nixed that idea, and Trustee Christine Matacic said they won’t revisit it for now. The additional fees would have brought in about $186,000.
The proposed total roads budget for next year is $2.3 million but revenues are only projected to reach $1.7 million in that fund. The general fund makes up the difference. Matacic said that can’t continue forever.
“The taxes that we’re generating through all the revenue sources at this point for roads and infrastructure, they are insufficient and have been insufficient for 15, 20 years at least,” Matacic said. “I think we’re going to start having those conversations about how do we make sure our roads are safe and are kept in good order.”
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