A potential new policy would see Peoria Heights save any surplus funds in the annual fire department budget and earmark the money toward the future purchase of a new fire engine.
Discussion of the rollover proposal presented by trustee Nathan Steinwedel covered the bulk of Tuesday’s village board meeting.
“What this will do is this will put us in a position where we can take those funds and put them in the piggy bank, so to speak, so that when we do have to buy the fire truck here within a few years, that we have those funds available to us,” said Steinwedel.
The current village budget sets aside $75,000 toward a new fire truck. The new proposal would see a sweep of excess funds into that line item, raising the amount to at least $125,000 each year.
The goal would be to accumulate at least $400,000 potentially over the next five years, to demonstrate a savings approach that would make it more likely to receive matching grant funding for buying the new fire truck estimated to cost as much as $1.3 million.
“It's something that we know is coming, something that we have to make a purchase on. But it's not something we can just save up for one year and get,” said Steinwedel.
“The grant task force that we've been working with has identified that saving money puts us in a better position to receive a grant. The grants aren't necessarily guaranteed. The low-interest funding, if we wanted to borrow money, isn't always there.”
Many of the other trustees and city staff members expressed reservations about the proposal.
“If every department takes this approach — the police department public works — then we're really choking down what we’re able to do with that surplus at the end of the year,” said village administrator Dustin Sutton.
“I think we've been very even or fair when it comes to spreading the money around, what we've purchased in the surplus over the last five years. I don't see that changing, so I don't really understand how this is any different.”
Mayor Matt Wigginton said the sweeping of budget reserves could put the village in a precarious situation.
“I think that the rollover aspect is a dangerous game, where either you become a victim of your own success because you’re being so frugal, or you're inflating budgets that cannot be trusted,” said Wigginton. “It could go both ways, so it’s a lose-lose situation.”
As the matter was just a discussion item on the agenda, no formal action was taken on the proposal. The board did unanimously approve new collective bargaining agreements with the Policemen’s Benevolent Labor Committee and the Public Works Department.
At the outset of the meeting, Wigginton alluded to his recent arrest for driving while intoxicated and indicated he would not be making any public statements on the matter.
“Right now, as things are kind of ongoing, I’m going to just leave the comments to those more appropriately positioned to comment, and that is not me,” he said.
Wigginton, 42, was arrested early last Friday in downtown Peoria after police allegedly found him slumped over the wheel of his car in a parking garage near the Pere Marquette Hotel.
Kevin Sullivan, the mayor’s defense attorney, has called the arrest "deplorable," saying Wigginton did the right thing by not driving.
