The Forest Park Village Council officially approved its budget for fiscal year 2027, after months of back-and-forth over potential new revenue streams. It passed unanimously at the July 27 regular council meeting; Commissioner Maria Maxham was excused from attending.
“Service is not always easy, and there’s a lot of different competing opinions, and we certainly have our challenges,” Mayor Rory Hoskins said at the July 27 meeting, thanking his fellow commissioners for passing the budget ordinance. “The village has done a good job of pulling back; our costs go up, but we approach things in a very measured manner.”
The council held its last budget meeting on July 22, where commissioners were able to ask specific questions about the budgets for each department.
“The budget is the guide for which village staff work from,” Village Administrator Rachell Entler said. “It certainly doesn’t mean that everything that is in the budget is going to be spent during the year.”
While the village includes what it wants to purchase or utilize during the year, Entler assured that Finance Director Letitia Olmsted will continue to keep a watchful eye on incoming revenue and how much money the village has left in the bank.
The 2027 fiscal year general fund budget will see almost an 11% increase in spending from last year and will include a deficit of over $3.7 million, bringing the ending fund balance deficit to over $5.3 million, Olmsted said in her overview of the budget.
The draft budget provided by the village on its website is not the most updated version and will show different figures than what was discussed at the meeting; those will be uploaded at a later time, according to Entler.
“We’ve lost revenue, and we’ve not been able to replace it with new revenue,” Olmsted said.
Olmsted also mentioned the village will be recognizing grants from prior years for village vehicles and equipment, as well as rolling out some facade grant programs over the next few months.
None of the items brought up for discussion under each department’s budget were contested; commissioners only had a couple of clarifying questions and moved forward after they were answered.
While a few residents showed up to the budget meeting, none had anything to say during the public comment.
Emma Bradford is an intern for NEWSWELL CHICAGO through Report for America’s Local News Internship Program.