Buffalo Grove stays the course on budget

Buffalo Grove's village staff Monday evening presented a budget largely the same as last year's, keeping many of the same programs but not adding anything new.

"It's a status-quo budget," Village Manager Bill Brimm said. "There's no new programs or expenditures."

The $60 million budget includes provisions to keep all 239 village employees in place.

Brimm said one of the major hits the village took last year was a salt shortage. The increase in the tax levy for next year is largely based on that extra cost.

The levy is up 5.56 percent this year, from $12.8 million in 2007 to $13.5 million for 2008. However, that number doesn't include any tax abatements, which will be presented at the next board meeting on Monday, Dec. 15.

The money from the increase will also go toward pension fund increases.

The other major increase in spending in 2008 came from fuel costs, which rose significantly earlier in the year.

Brimm said there were some surprises on the revenue side this year. Sales tax income was stronger than expected, especially with the downturn in the economy.

Income tax also remained strong, but real estate transfer taxes experienced a sharp decline.

Brimm said the golf revenues also went down in July, for which the staff hasn't yet found an explanation.

He said the village, like many others, had to deal with the roller coaster market that affected pension funds for staff and the police and fire departments.

"This year's performance will impact future tax levies," he said.

Trustee Jeff Berman commended the village staff for working as hard as possible to keep the budget close to a zero increase.

"This is a real difficult time to be discussing tax levies," he said.

Berman said the board was given a much different budget earlier on and gave the staff the challenge to pare it down. He said he was pleased that, without the increase in salt purchases, the corporate fund would be at a zero growth.

Trustee Jeff Braiman also asked departments to develop contingency budgets in case financial concerns worsen.