Roselle adopts $32 million balanced budget, eliminates furloughs
Less than four months after Roselle officials said the village must make cuts or go bankrupt within three years, the village board on Monday adopted an approximate $32 million budget that spends nearly $900,000 less than expected revenues.
Savings in fiscal year 2012 will come from measures like eliminating three positions and several other already-vacant posts, as well as forgoing raises for most nonunion employees.
“The gap between revenues and expenditures three and a half years ago were tremendous, like a million dollars,” Village President Gayle Smolinski said. “This budget really reflects the efforts of the village in the last few years to get revenues and expenditures to meet.”
Getting there has required cutbacks that began in late 2009. That winter the village froze raises, cut services like brush pickup, enacted furlough days and cut pay five percent for all nonunion employees, laid off two rookie police officers and eliminated the DARE program. Soon after, Roselle also consolidated its dispatch system with DuPage Public Safety Communications, or Du-Comm.
On Monday, village officials announced more recent cuts while also sharing encouraging financial gains.
Finance Director Pam Figolah said that while the cost for personnel still exceeds $10 million in the general fund, it eats up 8 percent less of the fund than it has in recent years. This is partly due to Roselle eliminating its assistant finance director, a management analyst, a planner, and one crossing guard, as well as choosing to do away with the already-vacant deputy fire chief post.
Roselle also will continue raise freezes in 2012 for all staff except public works, patrol officers and part-time firefighters, who are guaranteed raises as part of collective bargaining agreements.
But officials did reinstate employees’ regular pay, doing away with a 5 percent pay cut and furlough days that had been in play since 2009.
“We are cautiously optimistic that sales tax is up and other sources of revenues are returning,” said Smolinski. “And since (staff) were doing a lot of heavy lifting, we felt it was only fair.”
Figolah said September sales tax revenues, the most recent figures available, were up to $194,000 from $167,000 last year, nearly $20,000 more than she had projected. She said the figures do not reveal which business sectors are seeing the boosts.
“It’s coming back,” Figolah said. “Not quite to where we were in 2008. But we’re on target.”