Somewhat Tighter Times to Come in the Heights

Our revenues for this fiscal year (May 1 to the present) are lower than the previous year's revenues (for the same period) - off by roughly 7%. That's really quite good compared to other municipalities. I've read about a number of cities where their revenues are down from 10-40%. All in all, we're holding up very well. Our biggest problem is something completely beyond our control - that Illinois workers are just not able to earn as much, obviously due to the high unemployment. Our portion of the state income tax payments has decreased markedly; down by almost 25%. Hopefully, this situation will turn around (for a whole bunch of reasons) much sooner than later.

That being said, the coming fiscal year (May 1, 2010 to April 30, 2011) will be a somewhat tighter time. We will still be doing additional curb and sidewalk work - we plan on budgeting around $75,000.00 for that. Lower Prospect Road, from the RR tracks to Lake, will be milled and overlaid, but that will be finished with stimulus money left over from the previous year. I don't see any other major projects coming down the pike for the coming year, unless a second round of stimulus money is put out, which would give us additional options.

The past several months have been pretty busy, actually. Upper Prospect Road was done; we put around $100,000.00 into curbs and sidewalks; a bucket truck was purchased; extensive work was done on Cox Avenue, due to a culvert being near collapse; a parking lot was purchased on Duryea; we had a new salt bin built, one that is about two times larger than the old one, which was falling apart; amongst the normal day to day activities.

This coming fiscal year will be under the microscope, as the economy really hasn't done any true rebounding at all (I think everyone knows that). We are still quite sound financially - about $1.5 million in the black, in the general fund, and I'd like to see us get to around $1.6-1.7 million by the end of the fiscal year (April 30).

We hope to have positive news about the Kellar Branch Trail being given the green light soon; and that will open the door for our beginning the plans for a trailhead building in the Heights. We have a $390,000.00 grant that will go toward the construction of it; we will need to match it with an additional 30% in order to receive the grant; so we're looking at a building that could be around $550,000.00 plus in total. It should serve as a community building, as well. We have begun the process of the vision for this building, and I think it will be the "magnet" for the folks on the trail that we need it to be.