Dupage Policy Journal

Before their April 4 council meeting, village officials from Bartlett held a public hearing and discussion on their proposed fiscal year 2024 budget.

Village administrator Paula Schumacher opened up the public hearing with a summary of the proposed budget.

The budget, which will take effect May 1, totals $109,956,873. Their annual tax levy was set to increase $750,000 from the previous year, but the tax rate will not increase because the increased taxable value will cover that difference. The increase is also to cover the loss of tax increment financing (TIF) funds from a closing TIF district. The City’s operating budget is just under $59 million.

"We certainly have a lot of projects to pick from in terms of this year’s capital budget, it’s very ambitious," Schumacher said in the hearing. "And of course as those projects come out for bid, we’re going to continue the practice of the last few years, of looking at those bids carefully and seeing if there’s some additional cost savings modifications we can make. And also, if those bids come back too high, pushing them off. I think a couple of the projects we have on the horizon that we want to take a deeper look at, the Stearns Road ground storage painting, that’s about $800,000. It was supposed to be done this fiscal year, but that’s one that could probably get pushed back. The lead service line replacement project, that’s one that we’ve been budgeting for in the hopes of getting into a grant cycle or a forgivable loan. There’s none available at the present time, so I think we can probably shift that project to doing those lead service replacements as we’re doing the water main replacements."

The Village has $40.5 million in capital spending planned for the year. Of that, $3.7 million is related to water main and infrastructure projects, and more than $18 million will go to the rehabilitation of the Bittersweet water treatment facility. There is also an $8.5 million project for a new lift station to send Cook County flow to Bittersweet, as well as the annual $1 million for sewer rehabilitation. The Village has earmarked more than $3 million for streets projects this year, along with $1.9 million for annual maintenance projects.

The board members questioned a few things in the budget, asking about a line item for a new IT person to examine new technology and systems. Trustee Stephanie Gansey asked if the Village could do an analysis comparing a new employee versus a contractor to perform the review, thereby possibly keeping costs down and bringing in outside ideas. The board also discussed what projects could be pushed back if they needed to bring spending down. A trustee asked about increasing rates for commercial users to offset residential costs for service line replacements as well as increasing water rates, but City staff did not think that would make enough of an impact to look into further.