Carpentersville approves $44.6 million budget

Carpentersville's village board endorsed a spending plan Tuesday night that's nearly $10 million less than the one trustees approved last year.

The balanced, $44.6 million budget for the next fiscal year maintains existing operations without cutting any programs or staff members.

“We're making this a priority to make sure that we spend money wisely in this village,” Trustee Paul Humpfer, chairman of the audit and finance commission, said of the budgeting process. “It's a little disappointing to hear news reports on what's going on down in Washington and what the GSA is doing (spending six figures on a conference). With as hard as we work to make sure that we allocate these funds to the right areas, to see that going on there, is just disappointing.”

The budget is nearly $10 million less than the previous year's mostly because the money used to build the village's new public works facility was spent and therefore not included in the new budget, Humpfer said.

In the upcoming budget, officials will continue adding money to a fund designed to replace fire trucks, ambulances and public works vehicles. Meanwhile, the personnel budget increased by 2.15 percent to $24 million, due to a pair of new hires.

The village budgeted $2.9 million in capital improvement projects, which is nearly $12 million less than last time. Those projects include a new phone system and a reorganization at village hall and improvements on Maple Avenue.

Trustee Doug Marks was the only one to vote against the budget Tuesday night, saying he didn't agree with a portion of the capital improvements and “other small items” within the budget.

The approval, meanwhile, was delayed by two weeks.

On April 3, Marks asked that the board hold off on taking a vote because Humpfer and Trustee Pat Schultz could not attend that meeting. Both trustees were present Tuesday night.