Geneva, Elburn, Sugar Grove count on full income tax in new budgets
It's April and municipal leaders' minds have turned to budgets.
The Geneva City Council and the Sugar Grove Village Board approved their 2015-16 budgets this week. Elburn's expected vote is April 20. Their fiscal years start May 1.
Geneva
The city expects to spend $90.58 million in 36 funds, which is 10.4 percent more than what it projects to spend by the end of this month.
Of that, $16.74 million will go to the general fund, and $2.77 million is for the TriCom emergency dispatch center, a cooperative agency for several towns headquartered in Geneva. The electric fund budget totals $44.9 million, and the water/sewage fund budget is $12.1 million. The utility funds are enterprise funds and supported by charges to customers, not property taxes.
According to a memo on the budget, the city had planned to add a police officer and a contractual building inspector but decided to skip them, as it expects general fund revenue to remain relatively flat.
The budget includes $1 million for building a pavilion downtown, and $1.2 million for streetscape work along East State Street. Officials say those projects will only be done if the city can get grant money to pay for them, according to the memo.
The budget assumes Geneva will get its full allotment of income tax from the state, but city officials have made an unspecified contingency plan if it loses up to $1 million of that tax, under Gov. Bruce Rauner's proposal to halve the distribution to local governments.
Sales tax will continue to be the biggest supporter of the general fund, accounting for 30 percent of its revenues.
Sugar Grove
The village board approved the 2015-16 budget Tuesday night.
It plans spending $159,104 more for general fund activities than the village projects it will have spent in the 2014-15 fiscal year that ends April 30, an increase of 3.3 percent. The general fund supports the administration and police departments, and the streets division of the public works department.
The overall budget calls for spending $21.1 million and taking in $17.7 million. The largest part of the deficit comes from the water and sewer fund. The difference will be made up via reserves and surpluses in other funds.
The budget counts on receiving the full share of the village's portion of the state income tax, $89,703.
The budget also takes into account a 3 percent increase for garbage pickup. Customers will pay $22.66 per month, starting June 1.
Elburn
The village's tentative budget calls for revenues of $14.34 million, and expenses of $16.44 million, for all funds, including the water- and sewage-related funds and special service area funds.
It could change in the next two weeks, however, if the village settles contracts with unions for its full-time police officers and its public works employees, Doug Elder, the village's finance director, told the village board Monday.
There are differences between revenues and expenditures of $674,000 in the motor fuel tax fund, and about $400,000 in the transportation fund. The village will use reserves in those funds to make up differences.