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Article

CIty Audit Results Presented

Monday, October 12, 2009 - Posted 9:53:22 PM

The Minonk City Council approved the annual audit at their normal Monday night meeting.  City Administrator Doug Elder explained the results of the audit in detail to the council members.

The City Administrator explained the schedule of legal debt margin saying that as a community we are limited by law as to how much debt we can incur. The number is the same for every municipality in the State of Illinois and that is 8.625 % of assessed valuation. The City's assessed valuation was $22,921,530 in the 2007 tax year. The legal debt margin limitation would have been $1,976,982. That means the City can have that much debt, but the City's debt is much lower. The City has $45,000 in GO Bonds, another $400,000 in GO Bonds, and $45,016 in the revolving loan fund. Elder said "We are allowed to have 1.9 million dollars in debt, but we have under ½ million dollars in debt and that is a very good measure for the City to have such a small percentage of their legal debt margin as actual debt."

Ordinance Approved with Roanoke Windfarms

The Council approved an ordinance that allows Roanoke Wind to construct wind turbines within 1.5 miles of the Minonk City Limits.

Sewer Connection Issue Resolved

The Council approved a recommendation from a joint meeting of the Water & Sewer Committee and the Streets & Alleys Committee to pass a variance allowing Justin Faulk and Craig Meyer to keep their joint sewer without City inspection so long as they pay the standard sewer permit fee. The Council's action also recommended the City Administrator to review the Sewer Ordinance and prepare a document recommending any changes to the Water & Sewer Committee before November 1, 2009.

Public Comments

Justin Faulk thanked the aldermen for using good judgment and common sense in the decision that they made of his sewer project. He also said that he felt that this process could have been handled better and it was a waste of taxpayer’s money to have an attorney to look into this project. He stated that the citizens of Minonk have elected these aldermen to make decisions such as this and entrusted them to make those decisions that he believes they are fully capable of doing without the cost of hiring the City Attorney.

Mayor's Comments

• Reported to the Council that the City is going to see income tax estimates, MFT estimates, and state use tax estimates all in decline and the State of Illinois anticipated 3% declines and already in the first four months into this year the declines have been 18%.

• Reported that our MFT is down below the 2004 level and that the recession is starting to wreak havoc on the anticipation of dollars coming in from the state and seems to be accelerating now.

• Stated that City Administrator Doug Elder will have to review the anticipated revenues from the state before we go into our budget process starting in January 2010.