Village of Alsip Committee of the Whole Met April 12.
Here is the minutes provided by the committee:
Trustee McLawhorn called the meeting to order at 6:35pm with the following in attendance: Trustees Dalzell, Juarez, McLawhorn, Murphy, Nava-Esparza and Clerk Petzel.
The Finance Director, Joyce Tucker, led the discussion. The budgets she distributed were not complete but wanted the Board to be able to get familiar with where they will be able to find things. The consolidated budget will show every fund and what they are budgeted for in revenues and expenses. There is a net column showing the net between the revenues and expenses. Fund balances have also been added so you can tell if they will be using any of their cash. Revenues have been sorted by size in the General Fund. Most of the money comes from real estate taxes, sales taxes, state income tax, solid waste disposal fee and so on. The most important will be listed at the top. She wanted to be able to show the difference between what our operating money is and what the pension liability money is. There is a listing of total revenues followed by expenses far the general fund. Line items will still need to be assigned but this will be for all the capital asset purchases identified in the capital needs. There are transfers to various funds. Health insurance will become its own fund. Debt service has always been a separate fund but money will be transferred from everyone that pays into 22 the debt service. Liability insurance will also become its own fund. It needs to be clear and transparent where the money comes from and where it gets spent. OPEB will be its own fund so everything going in and coming out can be clearly identified. Police and Fire Pensions will have a transfer fund that will mostly likely be ACH from outside entities. A reserve fund has been setup that currently has a half a million going into it each year. It will take a few years to get the reserve built up. Each department has their revenues/ expenses broken down within the General Fund. The net is currently is $ 579, 000 so there is a little cushion. There was not review of all the detailing documentation. She wanted to give the Board time to review all the information provided. The Capital Needs that have been identified to date was provided and it is still a work in progress. It is intended to be a 10- year plan for upcoming projects and needs so it can be budgeted for. You can see how the project will be paid for (general fund, fund revenues, grants). Everything is broken down by each department. Expenses will be able to be tracked by each project within the funds with separate line items. A summary for each year was provided for the total costs moveable equipment, building improvements, infrastructure improvements and where the money will be coming from. Those same numbers can be found on the summary pages in the front of the documents provided. The goal is to make it as transparent as possible so the residents know where their money is going. She encouraged Trustees to make any suggestions to help clarify anything she will incorporate it. There will be refinement going forward and it will be brought up again after everyone has had time to review. More details will be added. Trustee McLawhorn was against the LED signs for Heritage I and Heritage II. Trustees Juarez, McLawhorn and Ms. Tucker discussed the WiFi capable thermostats for the Heritages. Currently it is baseboard heaters with a numeric knob ranging from 1-5. If a resident calls to say the heat isn't warking a maintenance person has to go physically look. With this WiFi capability they will be able to see remotely what the temperature is. There is nothing currently installed like it so it will be built from scratch which is where some of the high expenses come from. The Mayor, Ms. Tucker and Trustees McLawhorn and Nava-Esparza discussed the LED signs for the Heritages. The upgrades would not only be for the Heritage signs but also to upgrade the one in front of the Village Hall that is approximately 30 years old. Rodger was not in attendance to further explain the difference in the prices for the signs. There was discussion about finding alternative buildings for Public Works and Water Department vehicles to protect our fleet assets. Finding alternatives for the Police Department fleet vehicles will also open up some of the parking lot. There would also be a possibility of using one of the rooms in the current garage to have a backup for IT products. The consolidated budget showed places where specific line items will be using cash from the fund balance. A line item will be added to the revenues titled Fund Balance Use. Cash will be transferred to that revenue line. Those line items will end up being a balanced budget because cash that is in the fund balance will be used. The full budgets will be handed out to the Department Heads so there can be interaction and review on their end too. There will be capital assets policy going into place so next year Ms. Tucker recommended having at least a separate Village Properties Committee Meeting to review that budget. There will be more information available to see what the Board is making a decision about. There was discussion about if the Planning & Zoning Secretary should be kept separate from the staff expense and if the advertising would be moved out of the Clerk' s Office line item into Planning and Zoning. Ms. Tucker thought it best to keep the staff expenses together and provide a detailed breakdown of which members were getting paid what amounts to be transparent. She was going to look further into the advertising costs. Under the HR budget there is a line item for training that would be for Think HR. This village wide employee training such as sexual harassment. Police and Fire have specific line items for training because of the specialized training they are required to complete. The attorney is also reviewing some fraud training that will be possibly coming. That training will also be implemented by the HR Department.
ADJOURNMENT: Motion by Trustee Juarez to adjourn and; seconded by Trustee Nava-Esparza. All in favor; none opposed. Motion carried. Meeting adjourned at 7: 26pm.
https://laserfiche.villageofalsip.org:1188/WebLink/ElectronicFile.aspx?docid=263005&dbid=0&repo=Village-of-Alsip
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