Kane County Reporter

The Montgomery village board recently reviewed their plan for annual budget funds going into effect soon.

During the March 27 Montgomery village board meeting, officials went over some items from the upcoming fiscal year 2024 budget that will take effect this summer. Finance director Jennifer Milewski gave a presentation on parts of the budget, sharing the special revenue and capital projects portion of the budget created by city staff, and informing board and community members that discussion and presentation of enterprise funds would occur at the April 10 meeting, along with a public hearing and first reading of the whole budget ordinance. The second reading would be on April 24 when the city hopes to approve the final passage of the proposed budget.

Milewski explained the special revenue fund, which is a fund for government activity revenues and expenditures that are allocated for specific purposes. The village has twenty of these funds, including motor fuel tax, Montgomery Development, ARPA funds, various TIFS, and SSA funds. These funds are all for special projects like motor fuel being used for road projects or TIF funds going back to the development of the geographic area they came from. The FY24 budget estimates $15.1 million in allocations for these areas. The village estimates $11.6 in expenditures from these funds during the next fiscal year.

"So moving on to our MFT funds this year, as you may recall, the village uses these MFT funds for road projects, biannually, every two years. We have $2.4 million budgeted for street repairs in fiscal year 24 and we have 115,000 budgeted for road salt," Milewski said at the meeting. "We'll continue with our IRP program. With approximately $4.2 million in expenses, roads in this year's program include First, Second and Third Avenue, Arbitrage Drive, Catharine Lane, Deer Run and Edgewater, to name a few. We will have a complete list of these streets available on the village's websites for residents to view as well as this presentation.

For the capital funds and project, the village has four major funds including capital improvements, infrastructure improvement and vehicle equipment replacement funds. Much of the income comes from sales tax and grant funding, although smaller portions come from services taxes and utility taxes. Much of the almost $14 million of expenses go to various projects in the community. This year will see improvements in Montgomery Park, completion of the new public works building, and improvements to the Mill Street Bridge, and the board hopes to install Arbor Park if grant funding is received. The infrastructure improvements have a long list of streets being worked on, almost two dozen in total. The village will also spend over $2 million on improving and upgrading its fleet and equipment for public works and police departments.