Politics & Government

Village Board Considers 'Budget Balancing Alternatives' for 2014

Budget planning session full of twists and turns, as plans for outsourcing 911 call center and buying back firefighters' overtime in exchange for produced manning are proposed.

Proposed cuts to Oak Lawn’s 2014 budget have managed to whittle the village’s deficit down to $4.071 million, but village officials have warned that more cuts have to be made if Oak Lawn is pass a balanced budget in December.

Going into the second budget planning workshop with an adjusted $7.972  million deficit, the Oak Lawn Village Board met with department directors on Wednesday to review recommendations for the 2014 budget.

  • Annual increases in utility bills including water, refuse and sewer, and electric and natural gas utility taxes over the next two years.
  • Proposed 2014 sewer rate increases, which are expected to raise an additional $1,028,024 in additional revenue that will go toward a sewer rehabilitation program.
  • $2.197 million budgeted for street and alley maintenance in 2014, reduced by $1.293 million.
  • A proposed $1 million tax rebate to village property owners was also taken off the table.
  • Other budget balancing alternatives, including additional layoffs by eliminating ten positions per every $1 million of debt; selling off more village-owned property, such as the Cook/Yourell parking lot and 111th Street and Cicero Avenue.

Village officials were able to conjure up $7 million in excess cash, including $2 million in negotiated and construction permit fees from Advocate Christ Medical Center and $2 million in tax receipts owed by the state to the village for years’ past.

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The rest comes from more cuts to village expenditures.

Village Treasurer Pat O’Donnell said putting the one-time monies toward plugging the Oak Lawn’s budget gap when the village is already running at annual deficiencies of $13 million-- $16 million if one is including pension liabilities--would not solve the village’s debt in the long term.

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“We can cut back on the amount we do on streets and try to sell more property and raise taxes and use this money to plug the gap. If we sold enough property we could make it,” O’Donnell said. “At some point we can’t take on any more debt. You have to fix it in some way.”

As of Wednesday, the village’s finance director Brian Hanigan recommended a payment of $4.7 million to the village’s unfunded pension liabilities. 

Village officials also floated a plan to outsource Oak Lawn’s emergency dispatchers to Norcomm Public Safety Communications Inc. based in Leyden Township.

Outsourcing would produce an $893,000 savings over the next two years.

Department managers would be retained, but 20 emergency dispatchers would be laid off.

Deetjen said the dispatchers would have a chance to re-apply for their jobs with the new company.

In another bizarre twist, Oak Lawn Fire Chief George Sheets proposed buying back firefighters’ overtime, projected to reach $2 million by the end of the year.

Sheets said the village had no other choice to settle on a contentious clause in the Oak Lawn Professional Firefighter Union’s contract, which requires a minimum of four fire personnel on an engine.

Going to three fire personnel per engine would bring annual fire department overtime costs to under $500,000 annually, the fire chief said.

Over the years, the village has gone to court to change the contract’s minimum manning and lost. Oak Lawn firefighters are going on their third year of working without a new contract.

“I don’t want to vilify the fire department, they are absolutely good people,” Sheets said, “but the only thing we can do is buy it. We have to go to the union and ask them what it would take. The problem is the union understands that [minimum manning] is a money maker for them and they’re not going to give it up.”








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