Pingree Grove wants to share services with neighbors
Pingree Grove officials wants to look into sharing services, equipment and even personnel with neighboring municipalities in an effort to save money.
Village Administrator Ken Lopez said he is working on setting up a meeting with Elgin City Manager Sean Stegall and a joint meeting with representatives of Gilberts and Hampshire sometime next week.
“(Village President Greg Marston) indicated that he’d like to see more cooperation among the three other communities adjacent to the village,” Lopez said. “We’re in the process of talking to various administrators and managers to see what we can do to work together to consolidate resources.”
Lopez called the list of potential cost-saving ideas “endless.”
“It could be really anything as simple as working together to buy supplies, sharing equipment, anything up to sharing personnel,” he said.
For example, municipalities might want to band together to purchase a $300,000 truck used to clean out catch basins and flush out storm sewer lines, Lopez said.
But right now, the Pingree Grove village board is looking at ways to save money internally.
At this week’s meeting, board members approved switching health care insurance providers for village personnel, Lopez said. In a memo to the board, Lopez estimated the savings at $8,000 to $16,000 per year.
The board also approved contracting Sikich LLP, of Aurora, to provide interim financial and accounting services after Candi Gay, assistant to the finance director, leaves her post next week to work in the private sector, Lopez said. The up to $20,000 expense to pay Sikich amounts to what the village would have paid for Gay’s salary and health insurance benefits, he said in his memo.
More cost-saving ideas will come from the village’s finance task force, which was formed in September and will presents its findings to the village board on Dec. 5, Lopez said.
“They have a laundry list of potential cuts,” Lopez said, declining to comment on specifics because the group is still working on a proposal.