The Morgan County Commissioners received good news with the Fiscal Year 2025 appropriations budget last Monday.
The budget shows higher revenues for the county this year and the commissioners all agreed that the budget was considered balanced.
Commissioner Chair Mike Wankel says that outgoing commissioner Ginny Fanning is fulfilling a long-time promise of maintaining a balanced budget for the county government in the final months of her term: “As Mrs. Fanning has pushed for in the past to always have a balanced budget, we have achieved that. We’re happy to report that there is some small upticks in revenue and for the most part, expenses remain the same other than some American Rescue Plan Act exchange of those funds, which are close to being depleted. We will have about $1 million left that we will need to use up, hopefully, within the next year.”
Wankel says that the State of Illinois recently granted a one year extension to units of government to expend the American Rescue Plan Act funds. He believes that the county will not have to wait long to spend the funds due to the remaining work being done on the courthouse’s windows and the courthouse’s HVAC system upgrades: “It’s good and bad that we may go through those funds by the end of the year. Luckily, we have that revenue to spend on much needed projects here at the courthouse. We look forward to hopefully ending those funds by the end of Fiscal Year 2025.”
Wankel says there remains just a few capital improvement projects in FY25 that are specific to a small number of county departments. Otherwise, Wankel says there are no surprises with the budget: “As far as each department, those all remain pretty steady as far as expenses and normal expenses. The only thing that we are looking forward to are a few projects that need to be taken care of at the jail, which will come out of the capital improvements budget or the ARPA funds if those funds are still there; and then, the old health department building on West State Street. We will be spending some money there on some roof repairs and improvements that we need to make there. We are just fortunate to have the funds to take care of those projects.”
Last Monday’s role call vote on the budget was the final vote recorded by retiring County Clerk Jill Waggener.
In other action last Monday, the commissioners accepted the resignation of Road District 6 Commissioner Roger Ore. Ore has served as the elected road commissioner in Road District 6 for the past 15 years. Ore’s son, Chad Ore, was accepted as his replacement by unanimous decision to fill out the remainder of the unexpired term.