By Marney Simon | Enterprise Staff
After months of hard work crunching numbers and looking at the bottom line, the village of Plainfield has a balanced budget in place for the 2018-2019 fiscal year (FY19).
Management Services Director Traci Pleckham gave a brief rundown of the final budget on April 2.
“The budget process began back in October of 2017, it consisted of a series of public workshops continuing through last month These workshops consisted of overviews of each department and fund, as well as discussions of each division’s proposed budget,” Pleckham told trustees. “The village is presenting a balanced budget, totaling approximately $63 million.”
Budget projections for FY19 for all funds include $13.3 in salaries and wages, $5.8 million in benefits, $16.3 million in contractual services, and $10.8 million in capital outlay.
Pleckham noted that capital improvements are budgeted higher this year but include expenses that will be paid back to the village.
“For capital improvements, of which, $5 million is included for the construction of the new PACE park and ride lot, fully funded by PACE,” Pleckham said. “The budget includes money for two new police officers, and an engineer within the public works division. And for the fifth consecutive year, the village portion of the property tax rate will remain unchanged.”
Anticipated revenues for FY19 include $25.3 million in the general fund, $11.5 million in water and sewer operations, and $3 million in motor fuel funds.
The village expects to receive $68.5 million in total revenues, including transfers. That number includes $7.6 million expected from property taxes and $16.5 million from state of Illinois taxes, as well as $1 million in fines and $20 million in charges for services.
Some board members, while voting in favor of the budget, still had concerns regarding two increases put in place by the new budget.
Those include a 2-cent per gallon local gas tax increase, and a $4 per month increase on residential water bills.
“I expressed my distaste for where the board is going with, what I see, as large tax increases,” said Trustee Brian Wojowski. “The last two, the water and the gas. I do think that the staff… has done a wonderful job though, putting this budget together and presenting it to us in a fair manner that we can easily understand in multiple sessions with multiple different department. It makes it go so much easier I will vote for the budget, I just wanted to express again my reluctance to the tax increases. I hope that next year, this trend does not continue.”
The budget has been made available for public inspection at Village Hall and on the village’s website.
The new fiscal year begins on May 1.