Hobart Village Board adopts 2023 budget

By Janelle Fisher
Staff Writer
HOBART – The Hobart Village Board adopted its budget for 2023 as proposed at its Nov. 15 meeting.
The adopted budget includes a total tax levy of $3,288,151 — an increase of $152,304.54 from last year’s levy, which came in at $3,135,846.46.

Contributing to that total is $2,070,873 in the general fund, $597,908 set aside for capital projects and $619,370 designated for debt service.

Hobart’s mill rate for 2023 will remain steady at last year’s rate of $3.63.

The budget items highlighted at the board’s last meeting were solidified in the approval of the 2023 budget, including the end to Hobarts’ longtime Press Times subscriptions for village residents.

The 5 % increase in wages for all village staff was also approved as part of the budget, following a lengthy discussion during the public hearing portion of the meeting.

After a resident brought up concerns over the village implementing a standard wage increase across the board versus a merit-based increase system, Village President Richard Heidel said he felt confident in the present system.

“We’ve got too small of a team here to start getting into the business of 3% for him, 4% for her, he hits it out of the park, 8% for him,” Heidel said. “I consider the people we have here, the staff we have here, I consider them to be all-stars. And I, as a board member, would think long and hard before disrupting that.”

After a resident voiced their concerns about the inaccessibility of information regarding the salary and health insurance rates being paid to village staff, the board included in their approval of the budget a condition that such information would be made more readily available for village residents to access.

The names of village staff will not be included with the data to maintain a degree of personal privacy.