Role defined for Elgin budget task force
Members of Elgin’s budget advisory task force met for the first time Tuesday evening to lay the foundation for their job ahead.
About 20 community members joined the audience as City Manager Sean Stegall and Chief Financial Officer Colleen Lavery gave presentations about the role of the task force moving forward and the components of the city’s budget.
Stegall told task force members they can do something council members have more difficulty doing and that staff members cannot.
“You are able to be the catalyst for courageous and candid conversations,” Stegall said. “It is always easier for the council if they are led by a group of citizens to show them the way.”
The role of the task force will also be to provide guidance on the city’s future, on valued services, programs and projects and on communicating the challenges and opportunities in the budget to the community.
The structural deficit being discussed in Elgin — one that represents an imbalance in revenues versus expenditures in a chronic and long-lasting way — has not yet hit the city. Based on budget projections that assume no major changes to the way the city functions, a structural deficit of between $4.5 million and $4.9 million each year will be present between 2012 and 2015.
Stegall said city staff members are asking the task force, the council and the community to address that problem now.
“Address the storm clouds on the horizon before it’s actually raining on top of you,” Stegall said.
Preliminary action taken by the task force Tuesday included deciding to allow public comment for a total of 15 minutes at the end of each meeting — a decision chairman Carl Missele said could be changed if it meets great opposition by the community.
Meetings will be held from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Tuesdays in the Heritage Ballroom of The Centre, 100 Symphony Way, through August and September.
The one exception will be the Aug. 16 meeting, which will begin at The Centre at 5:30 p.m. but continue primarily as a trolley tour through the city.
“Because a budget is much more than a financial document,” Stegall said, “it is important to see some of the things we’re talking about, to look at some of the infrastructure issues in the city.”
All of the task force meetings are open to the public as community members are invited to add their input throughout the process.