By Kevin Boneske
Staff Writer
HOBART – On the evening the President of the United States delivered the State of the Union Address, Village Administrator Aaron Kramer stated about Hobart, “The state of our finances is strong.”
With the last fiscal year completed, and prior to the final audit, Kramer presented Hobart’s final amended 2019 budgets for the general fund, capital projects fund, debt service fund and storm water fund, which the village board approved Tuesday, Feb. 4.
Kramer said the 2019 general fund budget ended with a surplus of more than $332,000, which was the result of revenues being more than $208,000 above the original budget and expenditures being more than $124,000 lower.
He said the village’s total unreserved fund balance is around $1.6 million.
Because Hobart’s policy calls for the village’s fund balance to be 30 percent of the annual budgeted general fund expenditures, Kramer said just under $1.1 million is required in the fund balance.
“We’re not here tonight to talk surplus and how to disburse it, but what we’re projecting, we would have a surplus of around $254,000 – meaning over and above that 30 percent,” he said.
Kramer said the capital projects fund, following the amendments approved by the board, will break even for 2019.
“We invested $695,000 this past year in the village in road and equipment replacement – those are the major projects,” he said. “The undesignated fund balance reserve remains static at just under $250,000.”
When including the designated capital projects fund reserve accounts, Kramer said the total capital projects fund reserve account comes to around $533,000.
He said the debt service fund also breaks even with the amendments for 2019 after the village eliminated around $608,000 in debt last year with $432,000 in principal and $176,000 in interest to end the year with an undesignated fund balance of around $161,700.
Kramer said the village ended the year with $6.3 million in general fund debt.
With only two bonds to pay off in the general fund, he said the village could pay off the remainder of its 2010 bond, which has $143,000 in principal and about $14,500 in interest remaining, with reserve funds instead of the general fund levy.
Kramer said the storm water fund ended the year with a deficit of $4,417 to have an undesignated fund balance reserve of $965,801, which is 85 percent more than the projected expenses for 2020.
“Obviously, the storm water fund is extremely healthy,” he said. “We’re going to try to spend down a little of that reserve with some projects, which we’ll be bringing to you at the next board meeting. We’ll most likely be coming to you later in the year and recommending that we dial back a little bit on the storm water fund… The annual revenue now is over $500,000 in the storm water fund.”
Village President Rich Heidel said amending the 2019 budgets “is really kind of an accounting exercise.”
“They are what they are,” Heidel said.
Kramer said some revenues, such as for building permits and police revenue, were “considerably more than we thought we would get.”
On the expenditure side, he said there were some places the village didn’t as much as budgeted, such as for legal expenses and payroll reductions with vacancies.