[0:01] Okay, well, thank you so much for
joining us for our second workshop
[0:06] meeting of our 2027 budget series.
So, last meeting we were talking about
[0:13] our status of revenues in 2026 and our
early projections of revenues for 2027.
[0:19] Today, we're taking an early look at
what expenses could potentially look
[0:24] like in our general fund with our fiscal
year 27 expense workshop general fund
[0:29] preliminary assessment.
So, today we're going to start off with
[0:34] the current year fiscal year 26
projections for the general fund. So,
[0:38] that just means how on track we are this
year.
[0:41] So, for fiscal year 26,
we have an estimated year-end expense of
[0:47] 25,803,370
[0:51] dollars.
And then, the original
[0:56] budget revenue level,
so that 25,800,000,
[1:00] that's what we're anticipating for
revenues. We only budgeted for
[1:05] 24,125,000
[1:08] and
those, so we've got that
[1:13] expenses below budget at
167
[1:17] Oh, 1,677,481
[1:21] dollars. So, what this means is that for
fiscal year 26, we're actually in a very
[1:25] good financial position. We are going to
be able to cover our expenses quite
[1:30] easily
as things are projected right now. And
[1:34] that means that we're likely to have a
general fund surplus. As you may
[1:37] remember, we made a policy decision that
we have surplus exceeding 35% of fund
[1:43] balance is currently moved in portion to
the downtown revitalization fund at 80%
[1:49] and then the community park fund at 20%.
So, as you move into fiscal year 27,
[1:58] Some of the external context that we're
still dealing with, some external
[2:01] influences, you may realize remember
from previous meeting that the grocery
[2:06] tax went away this year in 2026, and
that's going to continue forward for us
[2:11] as we're going into 2027. That's an
estimated loss of about $438,000,
[2:18] and that's going to be ongoing. In
addition, one of our red light cameras
[2:21] is still down. And so, in total, those
are estimated to have an impact of 1.118
[2:28] million loss due to things that were
decided by the state of Illinois, and
[2:32] ultimately weren't within our control.
Now, we're looking at our expenses for
[2:38] 2027. Now, these are very preliminary
expenses. So,
[2:43] at our last meeting, we talked about the
fact that in 2025, when we were
[2:46] preparing our budget for 2026, we also
tried to estimate out estimate out 2027
[2:52] and 2028 expenses.
Now, those are rough numbers. Now, that
[2:57] we're in 2026, we're taking another shot
at that and estimating 2027 based on
[3:02] very early department numbers.
So, with that, we just want to start off
[3:09] and kind of go over some of the
departments because in 2024, we actually
[3:12] had some changes.
So, we have the city council, city
[3:16] administrator's office, business and
community relations, which is a newer
[3:19] department created in October 2024,
community development, finance, police,
[3:24] and public works. And then, within those
departments, we have kind of sub focuses
[3:29] or divisions.
[3:32] So, for 2027, the departments put
forward their kind of base operation
[3:36] budget, and then we incorporated a
couple of the things that you may
[3:39] recognize from the big swings list last
meeting.
[3:43] And with that, we have kind of our
actual for 2025 was a little bit shy of
[3:48] 25 million. 2026, we budgeted around 24
million. And then, 2026 is estimated to
[3:58] end a little over 23 million. That's due
to a combination of factors, including
[4:03] quite a few vacancies in staff as we had
retirements, and some position changes,
[4:07] as well as some projects where we're
going to have to defer those into 2027.
[4:12] So, as we're looking at our proposed for
2027, early estimates we're looking at
[4:17] just over 26 million. So, 26 million
87,546
[4:23] dollars.
So, as we move through this
[4:26] presentation,
we can take a little bit of a closer
[4:29] look at that. So, for 2027, we're
anticipating of that 26 million, about
[4:35] 18 and a half million to be salaries and
wages, five and a half million
[4:40] contractual services, about 1.1 million
commodities, and then 924,000
[4:46] of capital outlay.
So, this proposed version of the budget
[4:51] is an 8.5% increase um 2,044,707
[4:58] dollars from the 2026 budget to 2027.
So, a little bit of context.
[5:04] Uh CPI was 3.4% over that time frame.
So, that means what we are talking about
[5:10] an 8.5% increase, 3.4%
was inflation during that time frame.
[5:17] So, the increase is accounting for some
of those inflationary costs, as well as
[5:21] some of the items that were in big
swings of new service requests, and
[5:27] responding to community needs.
[5:31] So,
current proposed fiscal year 27 budget,
[5:35] we're looking at just over that 26
million. So, 26 million 87,000. The
[5:40] projected revenues that we talked about
at our last workshop, 25 million 695,500
[5:46] dollars, which has us with a difference
of $392,046
[5:51] as our current in the red.
That might sound negative, but you may
[5:56] remember from last year that we were
over a million dollars in the red at
[5:59] this stage of the budget process. So,
coming in under $400,000 in the red is a
[6:05] pretty decent place for us to be, and
we're hopeful that by working with the
[6:09] council and continuing to work with the
departments that we can get to a
[6:13] balanced budget.
Now, some of the things for us to keep
[6:16] in mind is this isn't currently balanced
with revenue projections. There's no
[6:20] buffer for economic downturn or any
additional state interference.
[6:24] It's got some limited expansion of
services and new projects, but not the
[6:28] full amount that has been expressed an
interest in. And this wouldn't provide
[6:31] the opportunity to transfer money to the
downtown revitalization fund or the
[6:36] community park fund. It's also
under-funding our capital equipment
[6:40] replacement fund.
So,
[6:43] those are some of the things that we
keep in mind.
[6:46] So, some of the new service requests
that are funded as the budget currently
[6:50] stands
with that just under $400,000 being over
[6:54] would be $25,000 per year for a
part-time records clerk in the police
[6:59] department. Now, you may remember that
this is related to the significant
[7:03] increase that we've had in FOIA requests
and desire for transparency, and those
[7:07] requests are just really outpacing
current staff capacity.
[7:11] We also have an opportunity for
partnership in an intergovernmental
[7:15] agreement to have a shared social
worker, and that would be $30,000 a
[7:19] year, and that's currently included in
this budget.
[7:23] The next thing that we're looking at
is that we have
[7:28] $225,000
in Main Street development site surveys.
[7:32] So, this is trying to remove those
barriers to development and economic
[7:37] opportunity in our community by getting
developers the information that will
[7:41] help draw them in. So, that can include
environmental surveys as well as
[7:46] topograph.
The next item is one of our bigger hits
[7:50] on the budget in 2027, but this has a
lot of opportunity to it. So, $450,000
[7:55] is a conservative estimate for an ERP.
That ERP would provide us with expansion
[8:00] of services including utility billing
portal, asset management, it allows us
[8:05] to do permits and some licensing and
registrations online.
[8:09] It also would allow us to have more
transparency through our budget process,
[8:13] be able to pull more reports, and it
will be a more effective tool. Right
[8:17] now, the operations that we do have the
software, it doesn't talk. There's
[8:22] issues with getting updates. The system
is often down creating challenges. And
[8:27] that $450,000, that's a one-time
implementation year cost. That includes
[8:32] significant training, that includes data
conversion and setup.
[8:36] In the out years, you'd be looking at
something closer to around $150,000 a
[8:40] year. And that's the same price as the
software that we're replacing,
[8:46] but we actually get to provide better
services with the ERP.
[8:50] So, the next thing that we're looking at
museum fixtures. We've been going
[8:53] through the process of upgrading the
museum, encouraging the public to come
[8:57] out, increasing programming, and with
that process we want to have a little
[9:01] bit more furniture and fixtures in there
for display.
[9:05] We've heard a lot from the community
that arts and culture are really
[9:08] important. And so, some additional ways
we can do that is by funding some public
[9:12] art installations. So, we have $50,000
in there right now for that. And then
[9:17] the downtown revitalization commission
recommended that we find some ways to do
[9:22] more downtown business support. And so,
we have our preliminary $50,000 in here
[9:27] as a placeholder until we can determine
what that support could look like. Now,
[9:31] that's specific to the fact that in
2027,
[9:34] we're going to be doing some extensive
construction projects in the downtown
[9:37] and that may affect the businesses that
are there. And we want to help our
[9:41] businesses succeed, so we've got this
placeholder there so that we can look
[9:44] into what some of those options could
be.
[9:48] Next, some additional funded service
requests. We've got about 125,000
[9:52] between
body cameras and fleet cameras, and
[9:55] that'll be per year, but there's also
some grant opportunities to help offset
[9:59] that costs. And then our police
department will be going through an
[10:03] update along with several others in the
region for police records management
[10:07] system. That's about 60,000 a year.
Uh one of the additional recommendations
[10:12] from the downtown revitalization
commission was to look at something
[10:14] called form-based code, and that's a way
to update our code, particularly in the
[10:18] Main Street area, to make it very clear
what we're hoping to accomplish with
[10:23] developers, and to make those
expectations up front.
[10:28] And so by generating that, we're hoping
that we can make sure that whatever
[10:32] projects do end up getting developed
align with what the community is looking
[10:36] for, and represent West Chicago well.
We've got 10,500 fire safe cabinets to
[10:42] protect our records and transparency, uh
$150,000
[10:46] for a Washington site plan. While some
of those expenses are set to start this
[10:50] year in 2026, we anticipate that that
14-15 acre site off Washington,
[10:57] that's going to be an intensive project,
and there's going to be more designs and
[11:00] more planning that will occur into next
year, and we want to make sure we have
[11:03] the funds set aside for that.
Uh we've had some requests to look at
[11:07] opportunities to support business
incubation with smaller vendor stalls,
[11:12] so we have an initial placeholder of
$50,000 in that, where we might be able
[11:16] to find a location and set up a couple
stalls, and help smaller businesses
[11:20] succeed. And we have $10,000 in for some
podcast services as part of our
[11:24] continuing communication efforts.
Here are some of the unfunded requests
[11:29] that we originally received that, as the
budget currently stands, we haven't been
[11:34] able to account for. And that would be a
community policing officer at 165,000.
[11:40] Community development asked for some
part-time assistants at $25,000, and
[11:45] that's help with responsiveness and
customer service. Our business and
[11:49] community relations department was
seeking an assistant director.
[11:54] Administration was seeking someone to
assist with community engagement and
[11:58] additional administrative support at
95,000.
[12:02] Administrative support is also being
requested for business and community
[12:05] relations at 115,000.
And then there were a couple things that
[12:09] we were hoping to clean out this budget
cycle. So, there's a lot of very basic
[12:13] operational public works expenses that
had found their way into the CIP or the
[12:17] capital improvement program, and those
really do make more sense and finance
[12:22] best practices for those to be coming
out of the general fund. And those are
[12:25] about $150,000 a year. At this point, we
haven't had the funding within the
[12:30] general fund to make that switch, so
that's why it's reflected as an unfunded
[12:34] request. Uh
the historic depot, that's the structure
[12:39] that we're hoping to include as we
continue with the West Washington
[12:42] redesign area. And if we do
reuse that structure to something fun
[12:47] and interesting for the community, we're
going to need to do some design services
[12:51] for that.
And then next, we work our way towards
[12:53] the futsal project. As we're moving
ahead with discussions on that, there's
[12:58] also some things that we have to
consider from the structural success of
[13:01] that, such as accessibility. So, making
sure that there's ADA access with the
[13:06] sidewalk to get to that site, we wanted
to put about 125,000 placeholder in
[13:11] there for that. And then the next item
was the Washington market design that
[13:17] we'd be looking at construction costs in
2028-2029
[13:20] and the 2.8-2.9
million, but preliminary design in 2027
[13:26] of around $100,000.
But, that's currently not funded,
[13:30] although that project does have some
grant opportunities, so we want to keep
[13:34] that on the radar.
[13:37] Now, last meeting we talked about
revenue options. We can see that there's
[13:40] a lot of
interesting expenses and opportunities
[13:43] that the community could take part in.
And while we aren't in a terrible place
[13:49] with the budget, if we want to continue
funding these new items, we do need a
[13:52] little bit more revenue to get there.
So, some of the revenues that we have
[13:57] previously discussed include a home rule
sales tax increase would estimate to
[14:02] bring in about 1.2 million. It increases
resources for community priorities.
[14:07] Uh the rate would put us higher than
some of our peers. It does include
[14:11] luxury items,
clothes, and it would not apply to
[14:15] titled assets. For us to do that, we
would have to make a decision and have
[14:19] it postmarked by October 1st for it to
start collecting in January to hit that
[14:23] $1.2 million number.
[14:27] The next item that we've talked about is
a grocery tax. We had one, it was taken
[14:31] away by the state of Illinois. We do
have the ability to re-implement that.
[14:35] That would get about $438,000.
[14:39] But, we would be adding it back after 1
year of the community not having that
[14:43] tax anymore.
That tax has been adopted by about 700
[14:47] communities. It does target necessities
like food. However, SNAP recipients are
[14:52] exempted. This has the same postmark
deadline.
[14:56] So, this table here, a little bit of
context.
[15:00] This shows kind of the current general
merchandise sales tax rates. So, West
[15:05] Chicago is currently at 8.75%.
So, in that case, we're higher than
[15:12] Naperville's baseline and Wheaton's
baseline,
[15:15] but we're in alignment with the Batavia
DuPage portion, and Glendale Heights and
[15:21] Downers
and then you'll see some of the others
[15:25] that are higher than where we currently
are. So, the Bartlett DUPAGE portion is
[15:29] at 9%, Addison 9%, and then if we were
to look at, for example, Lombard's
[15:34] Yorktown business district, they're at
about 9.25%.
[15:38] If which Chicago were to do that 0.25
home rule sales tax increase, that would
[15:43] put us at 9%. So, while we would be on
the higher end, we wouldn't be the
[15:46] highest example.
But, it would have an opportunity to
[15:49] generate about 1.2 million in revenue.
Some other considerations that we've
[15:55] discussed would be cannabis dispensary,
which early estimates, if one were to
[15:59] locate here, would be about $200,000 per
full year of operation.
[16:07] Look, a business locating here is not
guaranteed, and it would require policy
[16:10] changes to even allow us to go down that
route. There are public safety concerns,
[16:14] as well as market saturation, as there's
several located in nearby communities.
[16:19] And overall, that revenue source has
been decreasing statewide, but $200,000
[16:24] early estimate.
Amusement taxes, we could look at doing
[16:27] a streaming tax that would bring about
$50,000 in per year. Package liquor tax,
[16:32] this is something that we didn't talk
about at our last revenue workshop, but
[16:35] if we were to increase it by 1%, so from
the current 2% to a 3% package liquor
[16:41] tax, we get about 80,000, maybe 85,000
dollars a year estimated, and um that 3%
[16:49] would still be pretty well in line with
what a lot of other communities that are
[16:52] peers would do.
The additional option, if we were to go
[16:56] to highest level that we're able to find
in the rate range of 3.5% liquor tax,
[16:59] we're estimating at $245,000
in revenue for that.
[17:05] And then some of the other
considerations that we've talked about
[17:07] with infrastructure is that we do have
the challenge that we have a decent
[17:11] number of business operations that have
heavy trucks with large outdoor storage
[17:15] sites, and those can strain the local
road system and our infrastructure, and
[17:20] the property taxes for those sites might
not be matching that with the
[17:24] appropriate economic return.
So,
[17:28] we could look at creating an
infrastructure preservation tax, which
[17:32] would be an annual tax on outdoor
storage of commercial vehicles,
[17:35] equipment, and materials.
That's one option, and then another
[17:39] option that we could also look at would
be increasing the diesel motor fuel tax.
[17:43] Uh that would be estimated to generate
about $50,000 a year.
[17:49] So, at this point, this is just a very
early update in our process. We continue
[17:54] the transparency that we started last
year, where we highlight
[17:58] some of the expenses that we're looking
at, how is the budget coming along so
[18:02] far. We'll actually have another
workshop here in a couple weeks, where
[18:06] we'll bring back more solidified numbers
in the general fund after we have more
[18:11] time, more data that we can pull
together, and we get feedback from the
[18:15] community and elected officials.
So, at this point, I'm going to see if
[18:19] anybody in the room has any questions
related to the budget or any comments.
[18:29] Okay, I'm also going to check the online
chat and see if we have anything. I do
[18:32] see that there's one comment.
And that comment is just letting
[18:37] attendees know that we do have a
translation software available for this.
[18:41] So, I'm going to give a few more moments
in case anyone online wanted to share
[18:44] any comments before we wrap up.
And thank everyone for participating in
[18:49] this session. It's always great to get
the community engaged, and we're excited
[18:53] to have the opportunity to really show
you how we go through the
[18:56] decision-making process for the budget
and
[19:00] how all the pieces come together and
some of the challenges that we
[19:02] experience as we're trying to balance
revenues, expenditures, but also
[19:06] positive community services, and quality
of life.
[19:12] So, I do see
[19:17] someone that has done a wave.
[19:25] See who we have here.
[19:30] All right, I'm going to do a last shot
that if somebody wants to type a
[19:34] question into the chat, if not, we're
going to wrap up for the day and I
[19:38] appreciate everyone that is watching
this video either live or on YouTube
[19:43] afterwards.
[19:48] Okay, well, thank you so much and have a
great evening.