Finance director: revenues near budget but expenditures outpace receipts; five‑year review underway to address roughly $400,000 variance

Finance Director Matt told the Finance Committee on Aug. 11, 2025, that general fund revenue to date totaled about $12,604,000 (just under 60% of the annual budget) while expenditures totaled about $13,008,000 (about 64%). He said the first property tax distribution arrived in the past month and helped bring revenue closer to the expected year-to-date share.

Matt said July was a high-expense month because three pay periods fell in that month. He described professional-services spending as limited in July and noted one intergovernmental agreement with Coal City and Faircom related to joint meetings concerning GE Hitachi at Dresden; that agreement and the professional-services line remain on pace to come in below budget projections.

Included in the committee’s agenda packet, Matt said, were a CIC report and a five-year budget comparison that highlighted larger increases and decreases by department. He told the committee he has been flagging individual line-item variances and that he met earlier with the three vice chairs to plan upcoming meetings with department heads to pursue budget efficiencies and align spending with the five‑year forecast. Matt said those initial reviews are intended to address an approximately $400,000 difference between current forecasts and the five-year plan.

Committee members did not move any formal motions on the budget item at the meeting. Matt said staff will continue department-level reviews and return with recommendations to narrow variances and reach the approved five-year budget goals.

Also noted during the meeting: agencies that receive annual county contributions are scheduled to present updates and fiscal-year 2026 funding requests at the committee’s Aug. 25 meeting; the county expects roughly six to seven organizations to appear that night.