Island Lake quietly passes budget

A few months behind schedule, the Island Lake village board on Wednesday adopted an $8.2 million budget for the 2012 fiscal year, which began June 1.

The board approved the spending plan without publicly reviewing the final document, which went through changes in recent weeks. The board did not discuss the budget at all Wednesday before its 4-0 vote.

A Daily Herald review of the budget showed the biggest drain on the village’s coffers over the next year is expected to be water-related expenses, which account for more than $2.9 million in spending. The police department comes in second with an estimated $1.9 million in projected expenses.

To counter that spending, the budget is predicting nearly $8.3 million in revenues from taxes, fees and other sources. Revenue is projected to exceed spending by about $47,000, which would put the village in the black financially if the plan proves accurate.

That prediction is dramatically different from an earlier version of the budget that predicted revenue would be about $6.3 million for the fiscal year. The difference is about $2 million worth of projected revenue from the water fund, the motor-fuel tax and other sources that wasn’t included in the earlier version, village Finance Director John Little said before the meeting.

The spending plan is leaner than the budget for the 2011 fiscal year, which ended May 31. That plan called for about $8.9 million in spending, according to village documents.

Trustees Laurie Rabattini, the head of the board’s finance committee, and Donna O’Malley did not attend Wednesday’s meeting. The session also included a closed-door discussion of the issues behind the lawsuit Mayor Debbie Herrmann filed against them and two now-former trustees in March.