We will call to order this evening's budget adoption meeting on whatever today is, sorry, the 19th of
October. Do the prayer. Heavenly Father, please grant us the wisdom and humility to be able to do the
wish of the taxpayers for their betterment, even if sometimes they don't quite know what they want,
but give us the guidance
and the discernment to know, to make those decisions for the best of them more than anything. And please
best bless this small town and make sure that small town feel never changes because that's what brings
people here. In your name, amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and
to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible,
with liberty and justice for all. Roll call, please, whenever you're ready. Scott Oldham. Here. Pamela
Samples. Here. Trevor Sager. Here. Dan Swafford. William Ellis. Here. OK, the only item on the agenda
for this evening is the budget adoption of the 2027 proposed budget.
You have comments, Mr. Town Manager? Just that we had a full presentation at the last meeting. I think
tonight Noel's gonna do a synopsis of... It's at the council's pleasure. We have Paige Sansone online
as well. So we can answer any questions. How do you wanna proceed? That's fine. We'll just do a brief
recap. I will share the screen.
This is just a synopsis, correct? Correct. The only thing I wanted to bring to the attention of the
public was this is the exact same proposed budget that was brought before the council during the pre-adoption
hearing. There have been no changes at all to the overall budget or any appropriations. The one thing
that was asked at the last council meeting was that we include three additional slides.
to give the general public what a 2000 home year one added tax comparison would be. Councilman Ellis
prepared these numbers. So any questions I would direct to him, but it shows the comparison between
Richland Township and the town of Ellisville for reorganization, yes vote or no fire protection, no vote.
and I can show the $200,000 home. We have a $245,000 home and a $300,000 home. Because they start hitting
the tax cap, correct? Correct, sir. And full disclosure, I did have help. I had Brandon check my work
and make sure that we had some back and forth and
We're good. So even its most extreme, we're looking at $20 difference between the two. And the assumptions,
sir, are listed on the slides that are on the website as well. I would say the difference is more of
the long-term math that with any decent growth based on historical standards, there's no way
no, it's going to outpace the tax increases, then yes. So no, it's always going to be a higher trajectory
than yes, because of the fire territory, because we have a larger base to spread that tax base over.
And then because with any new construction in the former township or the rural area, that'll flip to
urban and lower that for us. So
slide you want to call anyone's attention to you want to go through more we could go through all of
them if you prefer absolutely just so everybody's fully informed so on this slide we have the full 2027
let me just pull it down 2027 proposed budget it lists all of the funds I did want to highlight again
for the public
that the police and fire do not begin with a Estimated beginning balance because we pulled some of the
levy from general to create those two municipal funds So you will see that there will be an ending balance
that is negative and that's primarily because of the beginning balance not being established This is
the municipal fire so this will be the structure of the fire budget that happens if
Reorganization is to take effect. And so that total is the four million two hundred forty two thousand
four hundred and fifty five dollars and This shows all of the different funding sources where it would
come from. So we have the local safety income tax the municipal fire Cume fire special cumulative capital
development and the local economic development, which is our other lit fund and then this would be the
special fire protection territory. And this would be the fund that the amount would be $4,168,425. And
it shows the general fund and then the fire special protection territory equipment replacement fund.
So for the police department. Yes, sir. This one here is special fire protection territory.
Only takes effect if reorganize. Yes, sir. I forgot that so if the no vote happens on November the third
This is the budget that will take effect for the fire special fire protection territory And at the last
council meeting resolution 26-2025 It's 25-2026. Excuse me the council passed a
to allow the DLGF and or myself and to make those changes to the budget. So reductions will happen.
For the police department, we have the local safety income tax, the police municipal fund, cumulative
capital development, and again, our local development income tax, which is our other lit.
is $3,032,670. For our township assistance, that total is $530,000, with township assistance being its
own fund, and $80,000 coming out of the local income tax economic development. And again, that only
goes into place with a yes vote, correct? Correct. So I did want to make that distinction that when
We know on november 3rd what is going to happen our levy For our estimated civil max levy is three million
one hundred sixteen thousand four hundred and seventy nine dollars With the budgets the way that they
currently are We will have to pull out several hundred thousand dollars roughly Give or take about eight
hundred thousand. This would be one of those funds that would come out
And in the administrative budget, there was increases put in for additional personnel and planning,
there was increases put in for additional personnel. So those would also be coming out of the budget
should reorganization not pass. So here we are talking about the general budget right here. So in the
admin side on general is 683,460.
cumulative capital development is 45,000, and then the economic development income tax for 355 for a
total of $1,083,460. So again, there would be significant reductions in this budget. The cumulative
capital development, is that what the town's portion is for the Department of Public Works building?
No, so out of the cumulative capital development for the admin, we have currently in there
under computer services for me is our IT vendor that we currently contract with. So that covers the
utilities building and all of town hall. I believe he's worked a little bit with police. I'm not 100%
sure, but it's for that contract. That's the bulk of it.
And then also if you remember at the last meeting in that cumulative capital development I also carry
the planning vehicle and the planning computer and supplies now in that amount of 45,000 No, it's their
current vehicle. Okay have thought when gate
Right when gateway redid the budget 2.0 the new platform There wasn't a mechanism to put planning in
the cumulative capital development for whatever reason it just had admin So rather than trying to get
them to fix that Which I didn't know how long that would take we just made that and then I have it on
here at the bottom of the slide That the planning vehicle and the planning computer and software included
in the admin budget but remain in that department for spending appropriations, okay
So next we have the planning and zoning and that total is $589,159 and that is all funded out of revenues
from general. And then we have the department public works which is funded through local road and street,
NVH, cumulative capital improvement, cumulative capital development. The municipal wheel tax we intentionally
left at zero to establish that fund to be allowed to build.
And then we have the municipal surtax as well in there And just for clarity, even though we have motor
vehicle highway one-line MVH restrict stands for the same thing Yes, so for purposes of putting it on
the gateway, you will see them listed together but it's always better to break it out so that the public
can see those numbers separately and
Parks and Recreation the total for this fund is one hundred twelve thousand four hundred dollars and
For transparency we wanted to pull out these other funds the building and construction related fees
is a new fund that is a result of a house enrolled act that the legislation passed so we have to put
Estimated revenues in there. So on that first slide, that's going to be one of the funds also that doesn't
have a beginning balance So the ending balance is going to be showing in the negative just because it's
a newly established fund It's a highly restricted fund as well. You can only use it for various things
relating to the permit and construction process through planning and we also have law enforcement continuing
education and we wanted to show the budgets that we're
Proposing for opiate opioid unrestricted and restricted as well since we do use those with public safety
for various projects How many more years do we have those? Do you know? Okay, so it keeps changing.
We've gotten a lot of Things from the Attorney General several of the companies have actually gone bankrupt
right that forces Consolidation of funds and so we've gotten some money ahead of time Supposedly it
was supposed to go for 20 years
I don't know exactly to be honest with you how long it'll last I feel like certain companies are finding
ways around getting around these payments, honestly And then this is the debt service funds so and the
lease rental payment and I think that that's where you were asking about the DPW building so that is
the sewer has a bond and then the general obligation bond will be paid out of this out of the debt service line and
And this brings us back to the last slide that just goes over the budget review again. And if the council
has any questions, Paige Sansone from Baker Tilley is online. And any specific appropriation questions,
I would direct to the department head because they would have a better answer than what I could muster
up, I'm sure. Okay, thank you so much.
questions from council. Any questions or comments from the department heads and or town manager.
Throughout the years I've been involved in the budget. I always thought it was cumbersome and complicated
and now all the other budgets we've ever done was nothing in comparison to what we had to do this year
where we had to have two budgets. Thank goodness that we have Baker Tilly and Paige and Brandon helped
us immensely. Noelle's done a crazy good job.
Taking care of it this year, and I can't believe she can remember everything she does and so I really
appreciate that Okay Darla, where do we proceed from here because this is not the hearings that said
is there a motion from council concerning the proposed 2027 budget
This is not a hearing that was the last week, that's why Sir When we got here, I told you this was the
heat this was not the hearing that was last night This is just the meeting to adopt the budget So if
council chooses we can have public comment very limited however, traditionally we have not Yeah, any
problems with comments I do not your problems become
Go ahead. Okay, very quickly. Two minutes? Jim Perry, last week, we had some information presented at
the end of the hearing that I have some questions about. One is, do we have speed monitoring devices
in the budget?
because it's been about three years since we sent the last speed monitoring device to Illinois, and
it hasn't been heard from since. And that's my question, which couldn't be answered last week. Do we
have speed monitoring devices in the budget? Because when I raised this question months ago, I believe
the Council indicated a preference for including such monitoring devices in the budget.
Line item for that we have to go by line items know whether it's included in their proposed purchases
that I don't know So if anybody wants to speak to that very quickly We actually said last week we had
a request for two in a grant But the question is whether the grant is tantamount to the budget it is
outside the budget Right and and the question is what's the commitment of the council? to speed control
to an issue that I raised months ago. And I heard some receptivity to that, but I haven't seen action,
which I think is more important than words. How much does one of those costs? Approximately I'm not
gonna. I believe they are. 1314 thousand I believe, but that that's a
we're also asking questions for a new council will have to approve that on a twenty seven budget not
the city council. So we're we're getting the budget out there and they would have to approve the purchases.
Should that become part of we we have we have the equipment and we said that George can speak to this
I believe okay we we've sent it to Illinois and hasn't returned that was about three years ago.
George. It was not fixable, not within the range of money that we had set aside for it. And they claimed
they couldn't fix it. The question was the council's commitment to. So we're not going to get into that.
You have one minute remaining. You've put your comment forward. This is not a question. My second question
is related to the
to the other equipment we purchased last week, which is the count and speed machines that Public Works,
I think. Can we make that information public? I'm not sure what you mean by that, but... Well, count
is a count. If we have 1,000 cars going down Abigail Lane at 40 miles an hour per day, and we get that
information, can we share that information with the public?
That's important information. People want to know. I will share that with the Council whenever I get
the equipment in. Right now, I'm trying to do the right thing to do, and I'm trying to get the procurement
process going, because a lot of these machines that I'm looking at are not within the... what's the
thing that I always buy the equipment under? It's out of Minnesota.
Source well a lot of this stuff's not in source. Well, so I've got to do the procurement process so
I'm trying to get apples to apples and it's kind of hard to do and
I'm working on that. I do have the money in my budget to purchase this It's not something I got to ask
the council for any extra. I do have it here mark Share the information with the public When it's provided
to council becomes a public document, so yes, absolutely So so that's a yes that yes. Yes. Okay.
All right. Thank you for your comments. So your time is up Okay
we've allowed one are there anyone else with public comments. Seeing none we're now back to the council.
There was no one online. Back to the council for more I'll make a motion to approve the twenty twenty
seven. Budget. Motion second broken please. Yes samples
Motion passes. All right, is there anything else for this council for this evening? Just briefly, just
since this is an unusual budget year, he's saying so. Do you need anything else? Should we be doing
anything else right now? No, we just need to have the budget for four, which is the ordinance signed,
and then we can assist Noel with uploading that to Gateway. OK, thank you.
My one question, do we need to reaffirm one or the other budget after the vote on November 3rd? Well,
that's the purpose of the resolution that gives Noel authority. Right, I just know if we needed to have
that come back to us again to affirm it one way or another. I don't know that it hurts to reaffirm it.
That way the public's clear on which budget we're following. Sure. All right.
Yeah, that's the public no version a version B which one we're actually rolling with here Okay, one
last time around the horn anyone with anything further counsel See no further business were adjourned