Fund transfer reduces size of Rolling Meadows' tax increase

Rolling Meadows taxpayers will see a 15.5 percent increase in the city's tax levy, but the raise is considerably less than it could have been.

In addition to making cuts in spending, the city council moved $1 million from a vehicle replacement fund to the general fund for the next budget year, or the tax increase would have been 27.8 percent. The city's share of the entire property tax bill is usually about 11 percent, said City Manager Sarah Phillips.

The city's contribution to police and fire pensions has increased by about $2 million in the next budget year. City officials cited losses in investment income and state regulations on funding the pensions, but a police pension board member blamed chronic underfunding by the city council over a couple of decades. The state is requiring municipalities to catch up on pension funding over coming years.

Mayor Ken Nelson said he agreed with the decision to move money out of the vehicle replacement fund.

"We don't want to put that whole burden of fully funding the police and fire pensions on the taxpayers' backs," he said. "The taxpayers are having tough times, too. It's a good thing if we can ease the burden on them by using money they've already paid."

Layoffs for 2010 have been the staff of the Police Neighborhood Resource Center and one other position in the police department, said Phillips. However, she said the city is down 34 full-time positions since cuts started during 2008. The city has 167 full-time employees for 2010 and 28 part time included 13 seasonal, said Jim Egeberg, finance director. Hours of services at city hall have also been cut.

City revenue is projected to fall another 10 percent next year, with areas like real estate transfer tax, food and beverage tax, hotel-motel tax, and sales and income taxes hard hit, she said.

The city's general fund budget will be $25.4 million for 2010, with a total budget of $50 million. The 2009 budget year was so bad that the expenses in the general fund that had been budgeted at $25.3 million had to be cut to $24 million during the year.