West Cook News

City of Countryside Finance Committee met Feb. 12

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

1. Call to Order

The meeting was called to order at 6:30 PM.

2. Roll Call

Those physically present were as follows:

Present: Chairman Finn, Alderman Mikolyzk, Alderman Frohlich, and Treasurer Bolt

Also Present: Alderman Von Drasek, City Administrator Paul, City Clerk Kmet, Chief Klimek, Finance Director Schutter, Deputy Clerk Cordova, and Golf Course Manager Jeter

3. Communications from the Public

None. 

4. Approval of Minutes

4.a. The minutes of the Regular Meeting of December 11, 2024 were previously distributed to the Board Members. There being no changes, the minutes of December 11, 2024 were approved as presented.

A motion was made by Alderman Mikolyzk to approve the Finance Committee Meeting Minutes of December 11, 2024, seconded by Alderman Frohlich and carried unanimously.

5. Business from the Committee for discussion, consideration and if so determined, action upon:

5.a. Discussion on City-Wide long term capital planning initiatives.  

Finance Director Schutter stated that he wanted to nail down all the capital initiatives this year and shore up what we have in the current budget. Going out as far as 15 years without capital replacement we have about $3M in total capital across the various funds.  

As far as the street resurfacing projects, this year we are going to do them out of the MFT fund. We are proposing other than the CDBG grant funded piece of 6th Avenue which will be in the capital fund. We have a lot of grant related and IDOT related projects and two part projects that we put in the budget this year. We also have DPW and police equipment and some capital requests from Flagg Creek. We are looking to do a new utility vehicle for the police department and the forfeiture fund.  

In December the Infrastructure Committee approved the street resurfacing plan for the next five years. Our initial FY26 budget had a lot of the projects moved to 2027 after City Engineer Fitzgerald updated the plan. 6th Avenue is the CDBG grant funded project. We moved Terry Lane and Kensington into the current budget year based on a current condition assessment performed by City Engineer Fitzgerald and Superintendent of Public Works Serna.  We have a CDBG grant that funds it at $145,000 and that will be expensed in the capital fund. The local shares of $55,000 will flow through the MFT fund. Kensington from Joliet Road to the north limit and the total budget for that will be $123,480. Terry Lane from Brainard to Longview has a total budget of $101,338. We are waiting to get invoices from the projects that have been done. We have a lot of engineering scheduled for Joliet Road. We still have a little phase one engineering at about $100,000 and the phase two engineering would be at about $260,000.

We have two park projects which are the 5th Avenue cutoff park. This would cost $630,000 which we would fund out of the capital fund. We have the Srejma-Michalek Park project which is a rehab project. We might push this project to FY27.  

We go over the schedule to see what’s coming up in the next year, the next five years, ten years and fifteen years. This allows us to actually inventory all the equipment that is in the Public Works garage. We look to see how much life the equipment has and plug it into the schedule of when we would have to replace it. We have just under $1M in the first five years, $1,251M in years six to ten years, and $1,220M in years eleven to fifteen years. The big ticket item we have to replace is the dump and plow truck. We approved the gravel truck for $240,000. The dump and plow truck in the current year.  

As far as the Police Department goes we focus on the patrol vehicles and the two admin vehicles. The assumption is we get about five years out of each squad and we put no more than 125,000 miles on the squads.    

Chief Klimek stated that he bought a Star Chase GPS system which just rolled out this year. It’s a GPS tracking system that we can use to tag fleeing vehicles that are used in crimes. We had a grant this year and bought enough systems for four of our cars. Next year I would like to buy this system for all of the squads. We are also buying a mobile camera trailer that would be used where we need to use surveillance cameras and can’t find a power source. The places we would use it is at the retail shopping centers, special events, and the parades.    

As far as the stationary intersection cameras we’ve had a lot of success using technology and some investigations are a response to patrol. We’d like to put $25,000 in the budget to expand that program. The intersection we would like to use it for is Joliet Road and Lagrange. The cradle points or point routers are to give a stronger WIFI connection in the squad cars. We are planning to equip all the squad cars with the routers. All of our squads have mobile radios in them except for the Deputy Chiefs car, we would like to install one in that car also.

Finance Director Schutter said that we also have an Admin car in the budget and we will need to adjust the price. Chief Klimek proposed that the money come out of the drug forfeiture funds, the asset forfeiture funds that we get primarily from the narcotics and currency interdiction task force. The vehicle will be used for the truck enforcement officers, we have three of them and we use the scales to weigh trucks when they go out and do commercial vehicle enforcement once a month.  

Golf Course Manager Jeter stated that for the next year the golf course is looking to replace five golf carts. We also have an aging sprayer which Golf Course Superintendent Hill would use for the grass to remove the weeds and fertilizer. It has been leaking transmission fluid for the last two years so it’s time to replace it. We are looking to replace the lights which will cost around $100,000 the lights will be good for safety of the employees, customers, and to help the police when they drive through at nighttime. Finance Director Schutter said that City Engineer Fitzgerald gave us a preliminary quote of $87,000 two years ago. Mr. Fitzgerald wrote the photometric code and said if we were going to do this substantial improvement project that it should conform to the code. With all the other projects we have been doing to the golf course we decided to reintroduce this project back into the budget.  

Finance Director Schutter stated that as far as the water mains go, City Engineer Fitzgerald has updated the fifteen year replacement plan on the water mains. We haven’t slated anything for the water mains in the 2026 budget year. The next project would be Dansher Road which would cost about $1.680M. The paving portion of the project would cost another $1.8M. Another big main project would be Joliet Road in 2030 which would go from Brainard to Lagrange Road. In 2040 there’s another Joliet Road project that would go from Willow Springs Road to Brainard.   

5.b.  Consideration to approve the monthly treasurer’s report for the 7 months ended November 30, 2024.  

Finance Director Schutter stated that November financial statements reflect a positive revenue of just over $1.3 million in the general fund. The revenue result was due primarily to positive variances in investment income ($547K), building permits ($252K), fixed asset sales ($207K), Flagg Creek profit sharing distributions ($184K), grant revenue ($42K), sales tax ($40K), and local ordinance fines ($37K). Investment income is up from elevated short term rates and book gains in the core portfolio through October although partially offset by a book loss in November. The heavy permit activity was primarily related to the Gerald Honda remodel project with a construction value in excess of $4 million. The asset sales came primarily from the sale of the 9540 56th Street property to helping hand ($175K), the statutory refund for the Ford Fusion ($25K), and two patrol vehicle sales to Ford in lieu of a trade ($7K).

Expenses are trending at about $168K under budget, primarily from positive variances in the police, public works, and finance department. The positive variance for the police department came primarily from lower personnel and benefit costs caused by the retirement of a patrol officer who was budgeted for the full year as well as lower equipment maintenance costs.  

The positive variance in the public works department came primarily from lower contractual/consulting costs, and the positive variance in the finance department was generated from lower personnel/benefit costs from turnover and health care census changes. The fund is showing a positive surplus variance of just under $1.5M through the first seven months of fiscal year 2025.

For the capital fund the investment income is up primarily from elevated short term rates and from net investment gains experienced on a fiscal YTD basis. Expenses are trending over budget from timing differences between the YTD allocations and actual equipment purchases (police equipment/vehicles) as well as the inclusion of land acquisition costs (unbudgeted) for the 6363 Brainard Avenue property acquisition. 

Chairman Finn was looking for a motion to approve the monthly treasurer’s report for the 7 months ended November 30, 2024. The motion was made by Alderman Mikolyzk and seconded by Alderman Frohlich and carried unanimously.

5.c. Consideration to approve the monthly treasurer’s report for the 8 months ended December 31, 2024.

Finance Director Schutter stated that the December financial statements reflect a positive revenue variance of just over $1.3 million in the general fund. The revenue result was due primarily to positive variances in investment income ($534K), building permits ($271K), fixed asset sales ($207K), Flagg Creek profit sharing distributions ($183K), grant revenue ($43K), and local ordinance fines ($41K). Investment income is up from elevated short term rates and book gains in the core portfolio through October although partially offset by a book loss in November. The heavy permit activity was related to the Gerald Honda remodel project with a construction value in excess of $4 million. The asset sales came from the sale of 9540 56th Street property of helping hand ($175K), the statutory refund for the Ford Fusion ($25K), and two patrol vehicle sales to Ford in lieu of a trade ($7K).

Expenses are trending at about $262K under budget, primarily from positive variances in the police, public works, city clerk, and finance departments. The positive variance for the police department came from lower personnel and benefit costs caused by the retirement of a patrol officer who was budgeted for the full year as well as lower equipment maintenance costs. The positive variance in the public works department came primarily from lower contractual/consulting and maintenance costs, and the positive variance in the clerk’s and finance departments was generated from lower personnel/benefit costs from turnover (finance) and health care census changes (clerk’s/finance). The total fund is showing a positive surplus variance of just over $1.54 million through the first eight months of fiscal year 2025.

For the capital fund grant income is up by $30K from the receipts of another Organized Retail Crime Enforcement Grant from the Attorney General’s Office. Investment income is up by $123K primarily from elevated short term rates from net investment gains experienced on a fiscal YTD basis.  Expenses are trending over budget primarily from the inclusion of the land acquisition costs (unbudgeted) for the 6363 Brainard Avenue property purchase.

Chairman Finn was looking for a motion to approve the monthly treasurer’s report for the 8 months ended December 31, 2024. The motion was made by Alderman Mikolyzk and seconded by Alderman Frohlich and carried unanimously.

6. Other Committee Business.

None.

7. Adjournment.

There being no further business to discuss, Alderman Mikolyzk motioned to adjourn, seconded by Alderman Frohlich and carried unanimously.

Chairman Finn declared the meeting adjourned at 7:02 PM.

https://www.countryside-il.org/Document/Agenda%20&%20Minutes/2025/Finance/02-12-25%20Finance%20Minutes.docx