Finance Committee - Regular Meeting

It's the finance committee meeting for the city of Joliet on Tuesday, 07/15/2025 at 05:30 here in the chamber City hall chamber chambers chamber, whatever it is. In attendance is councilman Sherry Reardon. Councilman Larry Hug cannot make it today. And I'm here at Mudroom. First piece of the agenda is approval of the minutes. I'll second that.

I'll turn my microphone on.

All in favor? Aye. Okay. Citizens to be heard on the agenda item. And with that, we'll move on to the first item on the agenda, which would be the ordinance approving an amendment with the master agreement and one or more with the project loan agreements with the United States Environmental Protection Agency and one or more supplemental entities of the authority to issuance of the waterworks and sewer senior lean revenue bonds of the City Of Joliet.

Perfect. So, if you remember back in May, we had a presentation from Anthony Masselli from Spear Financial who's in the audience tonight on our sewer and water financing plan, and then the debt issuances that we would have in 2025. So this was part of that. The reason this was not part of the revenue bond that we did at finance committee in May council in June was this is what the federal government and their process was a lot slower. So that's what this ordinance is for is to give the authorization to execute the loan documents for that third WIFIA loan.

Just to recap, that's to cover, it's almost $87,000,000 It's funding approximately the next three years' worth of work for our Lake Michigan water project, including things like pumps, storage tanks, water main replacements and engineering costs.

Nothing has changed in two months since

federal government finally cut the docks together? I will defer to your expertise.

I'd like to make a motion for us

I to vote on have motion agenda item 8,588 to approve and bring to the full council for.

I'll second that. All in favor? Aye.

Reports. So you've got the monthly report for June. You know, the trend so far that we're seeing with, you know, half the year over, we're seeing a lot of revenues that are trending slightly better than budget. A couple of things I just wanted to point out, there are some revenues that are not trending so well. Those are related to, as I would call, Internet sales tax implementation.

So if you remember a number of years ago, we did an Internet they did an Internet sales tax. Those were reported for large retailers and sales. For smaller retailers, they were paid as what's called the use tax. So in 2025, it went to everyone being a sales tax. So that's one of the drivers for our sales tax being higher, but that means the use tax is lower.

And then the elimination of so there was a workaround at the state level for the SALT's deduction where businesses could pay a fee in lieu of tax that's kind of gone away so that our personal property tax or personal property tax replacement amounts have gone down as well. So good news is sales, I think, is making up for it, both of those reductions. But while I just reported everything's above budget, it's not without some reductions, but still trending overall. We're above budget on the revenues, and expenses are below. Sewer and water, you know, it's contending at budget, slightly above on the revenues and then below budget as it relates to the expenses.

And then parking is according to budget as usual. Moving on without any questions, you've got the exception report for invoices that were paid in between meetings. And then I know we heard from the Rialto last night at council, but this is their quarterly. Just summary, 22,800 people attended 16 events, four weddings, three movies, and a three day dance competition. And then I handed out the travel expenses that I realized didn't make the packet.

Smaller than normal or in the last two months, still majority of public safety trainings with some outliers in there for Is general

the exception report larger than typical or does it just look like that to me?

It might be because of the number of utilities that are on there. Okay.

Nothing unusual in your mind?

No, nothing unusual. You see a lot of refunds for water bills and then utilities are majority of what you see there.

You don't have any questions, Mrs. Verden, we could go right to the personnel summary. With you.

Good evening. Okay. Four forty has 10 full time positions that are open at the moment, one part time. We are working on filling those within the city. And below that, the other open positions we have seven full time. Again, we are actively working to fill those mostly from the outside. As you can see on the next page as well, the positions that we have filled. This has been just a quick glance at all the positions that have been filled within the last few months, which have been 27 positions, mostly all four forty. Any questions?

The four forty positions for the most part are filled from within houses you say?

Most of the time, yes. Most of those are going to be in house. Some of them are going to be obviously external, always public safety. We've never really seen anybody go from in house to try to become a dispatcher. So most of those are always gonna be from the outside. Obviously, have a few that will be external, but for the most part, most of those positions are always in house.

Can I ask work comp question then? You're good. Are we ready to go to that? So when you say nine additional in transitional duty, additional from last month or additional to the seven that are currently open?

So technically, the nine positions are in total that we've had open that have been transitional from not being able to work at all that we have been able to bring back. The transitional duty is normally within the department. If we are able to find someone outside the department, we could. So normally, the nine positions are just people that we have been able to bring back in. The seven current open claims are people who are out at the moment. They also are being worked on to be returned as soon as possible.

Okay. Any questions from you counsel? No. Is he right to make a motion?

Sure. Hold on one second. I'll make a motion to move reports 8790 and 8792 to the full council with a recommendation for approval.

I'll second that motion. All in favor? Aye.

You saying aye. Aye.

Thought you said eye for eye with me. So would you like to add any new or old business, nice for final action?

No, I would not.

And since I've seen no public come in, I'd like it marked down that this was a seven minute meeting.

Motion to adjourn. Sorry.

Hey. Oh, darn it. Hey. Second that motion. All in favor? Aye.