All right, being it's 5.30, we'd like to call the Finance Committee of the Whole meeting to order.


Madam Clerk, if you could take the roll, please. Mayor Miller? Here. Alderperson Klemm is absent.


Johnson? Here. Simmons is absent. Parker? Here. Stacy? Here. Shadle? Here. Sanders is absent. And Sellers?


We do have a quorum, though. Thank you. If we could join me for the pledge of allegiance.


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.


Thank you. And if we could have approval of the agenda. so move I second that's a motion by Sellers and a second by Johnson all in favor aye and opposed that's approved and we need approval of the minutes from November 3rd of 2025 so move second motion by Sellers second by Parker all in favor aye and opposed seeing none that's approved We have Item 6 is Public Comments for Agenda Items.


There were none signed up. None signed. I see nobody in the audience. And then Item 7 is Discussion of the Library Budget by Director Huffines, please.


Good evening. The library works a little differently than the city because we have one main source of revenue which is property taxes. We do not receive any funding from the city's budget for our operating expenses or for our capital improvement projects. The library is self-funded.


There are a few lines that I'm going to discuss regarding the library's budget. So we're going to start with the payroll lines and this is, I'm just reading straight from the memo and on the screen, we will still be able to see all of the expense lines for our personnel, which is what we're starting with.


So items 5,000, 5,010, 5,195, 5,210, 5215, 5220, 5230, 5235, 5245, and 5295 are all our Payroll Expenses. And you'll notice that in FY 2025, we totaled $788,660 for payroll, including benefits. And in FY 2026, we're projected to be spending $809,329 for a total increase of $20,620,665.


I'm going to keep going and when I'm done going through the memo, we'll go back and talk about if you have any questions when it comes to the rest of the budget.


So for non-payroll related expenses, the majority of our expenses are remaining the same or have small increases.


I'll discuss the larger increase, but please ask any questions related to items I do not explain.


Line item 6395 is our insurance other than employee benefits, which includes our liability insurance for our building and grounds, as well as the insurance coverage we have for the executive director and the board of trustees. In FY 2025, the cost is $45,360. We're actually spending 55,000. So that was under budget this year. Well, I mean, over budget. And then in FY 2026, we re-budgeted that line to 60,000 to make sure that we're in, including all the increases we've seen the past two years. So the total increase is going to be $14,640. In FY 2026, Hicks, we will transfer $52,265 from our reserves to help cover our budget.


The Van Raden Fund is from our history room, which covers the history expense line, which is line item 6379 for $5,000.


And that is special reserves that can only be spent in the history room. Our IMRF reserves, the total that we have in our budget this year is $13,130 and that's line item 5195.


And that's completely going to be taken from our reserves, which is also restricted and can only be spent on IMRF.


We're taking capital equipment funds of $9,000, which is reserved from a tech grant that we We received an FY 2024, and we'll be spending the rest of that down on new patron computers.


And then our building fund, we're taking $20,135 for capital outlay, which is line item 7040.


And we're using that. It's completely restricted funds that can only be used on the building and we're using for our bathroom remodels. And then we have our liability and insurance slash FICA reserve of $5,000 to cover insurance other than employee benefits which is this year we were at $55,000 so we re-budget it for $60,000 and that extra $5,000 we're going to take from our reserves to help cover for that. And in In coordination with the Library Board of Trustees, I ask the City Council to approve the FY 2026 budget when it is presented at an upcoming City Council meeting.


And then this directly reflects with a responsive, efficient government for our strategic plan. So, any questions on the budget?


Alderman Sellers. Alderman, Sellers. Yeah just like to know the increases are they because are they there because of you have more programming or you have more people or you know what's the increase of all these these line items is it because of those things? So the expense line is just we renegotiated with AFSCME and then it's also just the general payroll increases for health insurance, retirement, social Security, Medicare, all of that.


And then the insurance, insurance all kinds is going up. Car, building, health, all of that is rising.


So the two main areas that we've seen increases in are not directly reflective of the programming that we have.


Okay, thank you. Alderman Stacey. Yes, Ashley Per, here am I in conversation. and you had shared that taxes were going to go up 4.96 percent. I think it's 4.94. 4.94 percent.


That is a levy, the levy conversation, but I will still answer any questions about it.


The levy is next on the agenda. Okay. I'll wait for the levy because it may get answered.


Okay. There was several items you said you were going to spend out of reserves. What is that total up to?


The items that we're spending out of our reserves are our fund balance transfer for FY 2025, which is current now, is $81,665, and in FY 2026 we're spending $52,265 out of our reserves.


And that's, as the budget stands, you need that to make up? Okay. Thank you. Anything else? That's the end of that one, and then we'll move right into item 8, which is presentation of the Library Tax Levy.


Johnson. Okay. So, the City Council adopts a separate levy for the library operations each year. In 2023, the library reduced our levy request for Medicare, liability insurance, Unemployment and Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund, which is IMRF, in order to spend down our prior reserves in these areas.


At the time, we informed Council that these rates would need to increase when the funds were exhausted.


and many more. Thank you. were exhausted. The EAV equalized assessed value for the City of Freeport has decreased by $105,004 over the past year.


Due to this decrease, any additional increment from the rising property values is not available.


The other alternative is to increase the tax rate. As the 2023 levy was decreased previously in order to spend down reserves, the library would like to increase the rate for 2025 paid in 2026. The library may increase their tax rate but only in an amount under 5% of the previous level. Based on this information, the library's levy request for 2025 paid in 2026 is $1,114,500. This increase would generate $52,500 more in property taxes from last year.


And the property taxes make up about 84% of the library's income. A house valued at $100,000 would see an increase of $6 on their library portion of their tax bill.


And then you can see the information about the rates up there on the screen.


and I will entertain questions. Thank you. Does this happen automatic? I mean, is there a vote other than the council?


First, the Library Board also has to vote to approve this. We meet on Wednesday.


Depending on the schedule of meetings year by year, sometimes the library meets first, sometimes the city council will have their first reading, then the library will have their meeting, and then the city council will have their second meeting to do the second reading.


But this year, we're able to have the COW before the library meets on Wednesday.


So I'm going to be able to take your feedback that you give me here to the meeting on Wednesday to discuss that with the Library Board.


I guess what I'm asking is whether or not the homeowner taxes go up. Is that determined right here?


Yes, that's what the levy is. Correct. It's a little bit different because the city can just make their own decision about their levy and it's just totally you and you don't have other boards that are approving it.


The library board is the only other board that does the levy. So it's the library board doing their own levy and then you have to approve what they bring to you.


If you don't approve it, the library has to go back and redo it. and there's no other avenue or no other source.


The only other source would be is if some of the other taxes that the city gets, I am not an expert in this.


Michelle would more be an expert in this is if any of those funds can be given to the library.


I know that their budget is very tight. That is not something that we have discussed or that we're really planning on doing.


But to answer your question, the tax levy is pretty much the only, it is the number one source of income for the library.


We do our best with going out and getting grants. We also have support from our foundation, but our foundation doesn't even have enough money for us to operate for one year.


and that budget includes expense for new books, new magazine. Correct. It includes any all of those things, all of our new materials, all of our personnel and taking care of the building, the programming as well.


and the general public have no say so in this. The general public, it would go to a vote if we went above the 5%.


So we don't ever go above the 5%. There's two rules that we have to follow.


If you look at the top line where it says Library Corp, and then there's a tax rate all the way to the right where it says, I don't know if you can read it, it's pretty small, but it says 0.00345154, that has to be below 0.004 which we always keep that below 0.004.


And then the other rule that we have to follow is the percent change from prior year, the total tax levy on the bottom, you'll see the highlighted where it's the total dollar amount and just to the right of that, you'll see the 4.94%.


that cannot go over five percent. So the two things that we are legally required to do are happening.


If we went above 4.94, we would have to go to a referendum. And that's where the public vote would come in.


So what if... Go ahead. What if... this don't pass? If it doesn't pass the city, we have to go back and we would have to cut $52,000 out of our budget and try to figure out how to make that happen.


We would do things like not spend the money for capital outlay, We would do everything we can not to cut any of our services.


So, that's what would happen. If we- Go ahead. Go ahead. If we did not spend the money, I mean, is there something wrong with the computers that we have?


Yes. The tech grant that I'm talking about, we have to spend that by June 2026 because that was awarded to us from the state of Illinois.


So that $9,000 will get spent even if we don't pass this levy, we change the levy. There are other things that we can do looking at other opportunities that are out there, Mayor, but that's not guaranteed funds at this point, it's still a grant process where we have to fill out an application and we have to wait until June to know whether or not we actually get the money.


So did the library have a separate grant writing? Yeah, me. I write the grants.


Go ahead. Alderman Sellers. I'd just like to say that right now my vote would be yes.


All the great things that I heard this summer and the excitement that came out of the young lady that always comes and speaks, you know, all the great things that the library does for our children, and that's our number one thing.


We want to make sure our kids stay in a place where they can keep their minds and imaginations going.


So $52,000, yeah, I'd like to have it. I'm saying for the the library right now I think it's a no-brainer really because we got to keep our kids involved in the things that they do at the library and they're doing some great things at the library so that's my vote I know already so thank you I just want to say that I think I was at the library every day this Summer, with my grandson, and I appreciate all the effort that goes forth in planning.


But being a single person now, and having to figure out I don't vote so much more with one income. It concerns me.


Yeah, and I understand that. I know that any vote that you make is not going to be necessarily that you don't support the library.


Yes, yes. Because I don't know that I can afford my taxes to go up. And if they go up anyway, will I have lights? Or the water bill is ridiculous, running water.


I think, I don't know, a five pound bag of sugar is now four pounds and it's more than the five pound pack.


Yeah, and I mean that's also something that we're dealing with at the library. The cost of everything is going up for everything that we do as well.


and I understand everything that you're saying. And I, you know, we feel it every day.


We see it in our invoices that we are using and we're trying to be responsible.


We cut back on our levy because we were levying too much money. It was just constantly going into our reserves while we spent that down.


And so now we have to bring it back up to what it should be.


over the past, from 2020 to 2025, there's actually been a decrease of $15 per one house, per house that's worth $100,000.


And then this year we're asking for the, what would equate to potentially $6 increase.


Let's put that still at over six years, a negative $9 per $100,000 home. But I hear you, you know, we see, we work with a lot of strict income at the library, so I hear you and I understand what you're saying, Cecelia, I mean Alderman Stacy.


Thank you. and we go to Item 9, the presentation of the City Tax Levy. Manager, Boyer, and Director Richter.


Thank you, Mr. Chair. The City Council has reviewed all the sections of the proposed budget.


I'm sorry, and we're now finally doing a lap here with the EAV. So we've received an estimate for 2025 equalized assessed value from the county. The EAV as our tax district has decreased by $105,000 over the last year. So based on this information, the city's corporate tax Levy for 2025 paid in 26 would be $2,976,000, a decrease of $1,400. A house valued at $100,000 would see no change in the city's portion of their property tax bill as long as their assessed value does not increase. And during the past nine years, the City Council has kept the tax rate for the corporate levy the same or slightly lower each year. So just and I'm just letting you know that the tax levy is down slightly, but it's leveling off, but there's no recommended change at this time.


Any questions? Just a reminder, Alderperson, Stacy, would you lower your microphone if you're going to have a question?


Thank you. Sorry. Okay. Okay. We moved to item 10, the summary discussion of any changes to the 2026 budget since the first presentation. Manager Boyer and Director Richter.


Thank you, Mr. Chair. We had a number of changes. Obviously, we got the EAV, which was a little Little bit lower, those changes are now integrated in our revenue side.


Also we're seeking to use $1.3 million in fund reserves to pay for capital investments such as replacing the salt shed, doing tuck pointing at City Hall, and upgrading or working on the City Yards facility, as well as equipment and vehicle needs for Police Department and for the Street Department.


Also, I wanted to highlight that this year we also negotiated with the insurance company successfully.


However, there was an increase across the board. It was projected at 16.1% increase. And we were successful in reducing that to 6.9%.


So a bit of a, let's say, a differed or a reduction in the rate of increase.


Trees. Let's go ahead and move down to the various funds. I want to start out with the City Clerk. We had a full-time employee to be shared between the Clerk, HR, and Finance.


That position was removed. So that was the primary change in the City Clerk's budget.


City Manager, Mayor, we made some minor changes to the fringe and the calculations on that.


Major there. Then in Communications we we had budgeted for 90 hours total for an intern and then increased of $1,500 with Fringe and reduced the expense to cover that. So Finance we had a full-time employee to be shared between the clerk, Clerk, HR & Finance, we removed that position. We have a handful of other small changes within finance but most of them just either minute or we reduced on the machinery and equipment as an example, that was reduced. Under government buildings, we added $50,000 for repairs for P.D. And then we are adding the $800,000 for renovation of the salt sheds at Island as well as $100,000 for the building at Island. There's some problems there that need to be remedied, so we're budgeting for that in the 26th budget. As well as improvements here at City Hall, we budgeted about $100,000 for tuck pointing. Originally, we had had a little bit more in the Budget. A lot of the changes also reflect the AFSCME wages and fringe change from the new contract. So those have been incorporated in with the changes. And we also made some changes to the sidewalk reimbursement program. We upped it slightly and we're going to also


increase the funding for the sidewalk program per square foot. So we'll be doubling that.


So we'll see how that goes, that will encourage people to replace their sidewalk. Moving on to, again, cemetery, we had adjustments to AFSCME wages and fringe there, as well as forestry.


We made some adjustments to the budget related to the clam truck, originally we had planned to do a major replacement on the clam truck, we're going to defer that at this point.


Under Community Development, again, we incorporated the ASME wages and we have included, essentially, the hiring of a grant writer with some of the savings that we will receive in past budgets compared to what we're paying for the lobbyists.


So we've removed the lobbyists and then we have added a grant writer to work in Community Development.


and also MSA Engineering has done a lot of our grant work for that department.


One of the jobs that this grant writer will do will assume some of the work that MSA has previously done.


So we took the savings on that and put that toward a grant writer. But we did plan or reduced MSAs to about $40,000 so we can finish out the current grants that we have available or that are currently in the work.


Police, again, updated with the AFSCME wages for the dispatchers and the records clerks. In addition, we've reduced the machinery and equipment to $35,000 and we removed a couple of speed signs and a previously budgeted for awning that's been done already.


and Fire again we've updated with payroll information recent staff changes on fire so there's some changes there then under just moving down building department animal control those are same with AFSCME changes then we have human resources so we had a full-time employee again the same one that we're going to share with HR and the finance we've removed that person that position in In addition, IT has removed the summer help. We had a part-time person in for summer help for IT that's been taken out. Interdepartmental, we had a transfer of funds from Interdepartmental to, we'll get to it a little later, but essentially we were transferred from general fund of $460,000 Cheney, Chris, and Richard, Dan, Neil, Michael, Robert, Chris, And here's another one of the changes that we made to the vehicles that we no longer plan to purchase.


We had a couple of dump trucks that we deferred, we're going to order, we had three dump trucks and we reduced that to one, but we also kept the F-550s and the other pickups that we need to maintain, so those are still in the budget.


On the grant side of things, not a whole lot of changes there. We had just the police donations.


There's a restricted fund that's collected. there's a restricted fund that's collected for a speaker for the Freeport School District 145, so that's there. We had a slight decrease in the grant amount at the Provincial City Transit, so we're continuing to track our expenses there and we're hoping to include a fixed route that that'll lower our total cost of operations and I think we're getting down toward the end here.


Going down to capital equipment funds as I mentioned we've made the appropriate adjustments having removed two dump trucks from our plan to purchase and police pension fund and fire Fire, Fire Pension Fund, the Police and Pension or the Police Fund will meet Wednesday and then we'll finalize the pension budget then and the same thing with the fire.


We don't expect any real changes to that. And then on water, again, we made the adjustments for AFSCME, the new AFSCME contract.


So that summarizes all of the changes we've made so far, mostly kind of reducing things and making sure that we're living within our means this time if you have any questions we have the answers I know you were talking about I know you were talking about the changes in the community development just want to make sure that we still announced our we are still adding the nuisance yes person to Help, and we're adding a grant writer in those departments, correct?


Yes. Okay. That's all. Oh, and then I'd like to know, what is the total?


Do we know the total amount that we are decreasing from all these things put together?


Is there a total, you know, like? I think it was approximately $3 million. Oh, okay.


But there was a, she has, I think what Alderman Sellers is asking is, how much do we have We moved some items into Capital that are going to come from Fund Reserve, as I mentioned, the Salt Shed, City Hall, Duck Pointing, the updates and construction at the City Yards, and the PD and Street Department vehicles.


One more question. I know you talked about the salt building or whatever. Are you going to give more information on why we are spending that much for the salt so people can understand why we're putting that kind of money into that building?


Absolutely. We have two salt sheds down at 1001 Island Avenue. They're a pole shed construction and they are very old and the salt has rotted away or contributed to the rotting away of all the posts so at this point the the sheds are starting to to come apart and fall down so this is important because this is where we store our salt during winter snow removal operations.


did I understand you to say that you have removed the lobbyists yes did he ever bring us anything well the the lobbyist did their they they had done a lot to to make us aware of different grants and things, but they had not necessarily contributed to anything that was outside of grants that we were already pursuing.


So essentially, the reason we're not renewing their contract is performance-related. When he was hired, he was hired for how many years?


It was just a 12-month contract. So he got that 70 whatever thousand. Anything else?


Could have gave it to the library. Alderman Johnson. I know I talked to Rob some about some of the overtime lines on here and I know he's working with that to try to decrease the overtime in some of those areas so I appreciate that and I would like to see that you know further than the days ahead.


I know there's some times when you can't help over time, but there are some ways maybe to cut some of that, so I know that'll be worked on in the next year here.


And we go back to Item 11, Public Comments. Seeing none, I would take a motion for adjournment.


So moved. Second. All in favor? Aye. Unopposed? We are adjourned. And then we'll start up as soon as IT