Oak Park trustees ask staff to study converting ComEd franchise credits into cash fee to fund sustainability

President Vicki Skamen said the board is interested in converting ComEd ordinance‑consideration bill credits into a cash infrastructure maintenance fee and asked staff to return with analysis that includes impacts on vulnerable residents and potential revenue uses.

Chief Sustainability Officer Lindsay Noratka and Mark Pruitt of the Illinois Community Choice Aggregation Network outlined the choice facing the village: continue receiving franchise ordinance‑consideration credits that zero out municipal facility bills, or receive a monthly cash payment (an IMF) from ComEd. Noratka said the village could use a cash flow to invest in long‑term energy savings, such as solar installations and building retrofits.

Pruitt explained the tradeoffs: under ordinance consideration the village’s bill credits fall as on‑site energy use declines, which lowers the incentive to invest in efficiency; under an IMF the village would receive fixed monthly payments based on a prior 12‑month formula and could reinvest that cash. He gave an illustrative single‑family example of roughly $2.65 a month in IMF revenue and estimated a conservative transition premium of about $47 per household during the accounting shift. He also highlighted risk: if energy prices rise later, IMF payments do not automatically increase, creating a potential funding gap.

Trustees pressed staff on equity and uptake. Trustee Eder asked whether lower‑income households would bear a disproportionate burden if charges were volumetric; Pruitt and Noratka said staff can model bucketed or flat structures and run distributional analyses. Trustee Enya and others asked why residents or building owners would choose Oak Park’s program over the county’s; Pruitt said a local program administered with the Illinois Finance Authority could foster competition among lenders and be marketed directly by village staff, increasing uptake.

Village Chief Financial Officer Kevin Busso told the board the village budget could absorb short‑term transition variance and that a detailed plan for tracking credits and expenses would come back with staff recommendations. Several trustees said they favor keeping revenue targeted to sustainability goals and urged staff to include scenarios showing potential net revenues and how those dollars would be tracked and allocated.

The board did not adopt an ordinance that night. Instead President Skamen and multiple trustees agreed to direct staff to return with a Phase‑2 analysis — including: estimated annual revenue by account type, equity impacts of volumetric versus flat allocations, building‑level energy‑savings scenarios, transition timing and resident notification plans — before voting on any conversion.

The board asked staff to consult Evanston and Chicago’s experiences and to provide a defensible financial model to inform a final decision.