Macon Reporter

City of Clinton City Council met April 16.

Here are the minutes provided by the council:

Minutes of the Budget Hearing of the City Council, City of Clinton, Illinois in session in the Council Chambers of City Hall and electronically, Tuesday, April 16, 2024 at 6:45 p.m. Acting Mayor Thomas Edmunds, presiding. On roll call Commissioners Wise, Ballenger, and Buchanan were present.

Acting Mayor Edmunds turned the meeting over to Paul Skowron, CEO of the Hospital and Tom Hankins to give an overview of the capital and operating budget for fiscal year 2025.

Paul Skowron, CEO, discussed the Capital Budget is less about brick and mortar and more about software expense in the electronic health records. While they have an operating income that is not as large as last year, one of the larger increases is the depreciation and amortization from what was built last year, the expanded emergency room and specialty clinic parking lot. Those expenses did not have depreciation expense. The electronic health record system shows interest expense, which is not truly interest expense as there’s a government accounting board with an accounting change that forces us to put dollars in amortization now in interest expense, he wants to make clear there is no debt. To offset some of the interest expenses, they are projecting income of $555,000.00 that helps get to the bottom line of $448,000.00 this year. Meditech electronic health record system that is more doctor friendly, it’ll put using the same platform ‘best of breed’ that the larger hospitals have. It was a key to recruiting Dr. Audrey Schumacher next August. When looking at the capital budget, it includes $950,000.00 for a redesigned entrance for specialty care, they are still working on to get the numbers within budget. Skowron asked Tom Hankins to speak about the chiller replacement. Hankins stated the second large item is chiller replacement for $825,000.00 the chillers are reaching end of life status and seeing increased repair costs. This is last large piece of mechanical infrastructure to be replaced. Through board approval over the last several years, they have been able to update all of the other critical mechanical infrastructure, which has resulted in energy savings, energy efficiencies and a much more stable environment for staff. They are in the design phase with an engineer looking at the current platform to see if it is in the best interest of the hospital. Skowron then discussed they are continuing to invest in the hospital, not just bricks and mortar so they can provide quality access to care for many years to come and continue to provide access for services we may not have now but are planning for the future.

Acting Mayor Edmunds thanked Paul and Tom for their presentation and asked the Council if they had any questions.

City Treasurer, Clint Lichtenwalter provided council with an updated budget, there is only two line items that have changed – they are both in TIF I. He received a number today for an additional road repair of Liberty Lane to be upgraded before the TIF expires. General fund revenues have increased over the last several years with the largest in sales tax and income tax. General fund expenses are budgeted approximately 2 million dollars higher than the average, due to some large inflationary increases in our operating expenses as well as some large capital items including major upgrade to one of the larger parks, an upgrade to the City Hall elevator, two new squad cars and tazers, and several smaller capital projects in the street department. This budget projects to dip into our reserves by approximately 1.3 million, which has been planned for several years now. 730,000 of that is due to ARPA money that came in previous budget cycles 3 cycles ago, it is being used on water infrastructure projects. There is roughly 730,000 left to be spent, it all has to be spent by December of 2026. The remainder is due to the unusually large capital budget being the large park upgrade and elevator upgrade. The FY 25 projected reserve fund balance will be about 14 months of operating and capital expenses. It is staying steady with where we are at and a lot better than where we were in the past. Obviously the next two years we have state mandated minimum wage increases that will continue to have direct impacts, both with volunteer fire and the yard waste facility. This years budget as far as water and sewer go, water rates will be 10% increase. The chemical costs are up over 50%. Sewer increase is 3%. They equate to $2.13 increase on the minimum bill. The self funded insurance had another healthy year, there will be no increase to rates to departments or employees for FY 25. There have been no premium increases since FY 16. The three pension funds are in a very healthy position. IMRF 96.25% funded, Police Pension 95.24% and Fire Pension 132.63% funded.

Acting Mayor Edmunds thanked Clint for his presentation and asked the Council if they had any questions.

Motion was made by Commissioner Ballenger and seconded by Commissioner Buchanan to adjourn the Budget Hearing. On roll call vote, Commissioners Wise, Ballenger, Buchanan and Acting Mayor Edmunds voted “Yes.”

https://www.clintonillinois.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Minutes-2024-04-16.pdf