Patch Election Q&A: Rob Watermann on Question #1

The question:

Just about all the candidates so far have said Montgomery needs to raise more revenue. What are your specific ideas to accomplish this? And what are your ideas to reduce expenses? What, specifically, would you cut out of the current budget?

Just like the households of our residents, there are only so many ways to bring in more money. Individually, we depend on salaries, full and part-time, maybe investments and even selling excess items. Reality is we are still in a bad economy. Many of us have taken pay cuts, lost jobs and had investments lose money instead of making money. As a village we rely on property tax, sales tax, fees for service and other revenues such as motor fuel tax. Our budget is vital to providing the services our residents need and expect, but during the recession our revenues decreased as well. At our last finance meeting I challenged each department to find a way trim their costs even more.

A responsible trustee does not just say we need to raise more revenue without explaining the rationale. Citizens today are taxed to death. I searched on the Internet and came up with 55 different taxes and I am sure there are more. I was angered recently just as I am sure you were with the State of Illinois increasing our income tax rate. This tax has cost my household over $150 a month. Taxes have gone wild and continue to rise. We need to understand why. Traffic signals cost upwards of $150,000 to $300,000 an intersection as stop signs are no longer sufficient. Repainting our water tower several years back cost $750,000. How about the electricity cost to power our street lights or norm of sidewalks in every subdivision. What I am trying to say is so many things have changed or been added over the last half century. Gravel roads are no more, now we have curb and gutter with a heavy base asphalt.

I recently asked our staff to compile a list of needs. You have to have a vision and understand our needs and determine if our wants are really necessary. We must have fiscal constraint while still providing responsive service. We can only raise revenue a few ways. Increase taxes and fees or seek grants to name a few. A positive sign is that our sales tax collection has already beat last year’s total collection and we still have 4 months to go. We need to look at every aspect and prioritize. We have cut our recent and current budgets in multiple ways such as computer replacement was pushed back several years, employee recognition has almost been eliminated and vehicle purchasing has almost halted.

We have grown lean and scrutinize every line item. Employees are now asked to multi-task and have had to take on a percentage of their healthcare insurance. There are always more items to cut, but we must balance safety, service and the needs of the village. As we look forward to the year ahead we have hard negotiations ahead with labor and a new garbage contract must be worked out. Economically speaking, fuel and cost of living only continue to rise.  I have been a strong advocate that we return to a 25% fund reserve and this has happened. Trustees must produce results and above all fight to keep our village strong. We have won numerous financial awards in the past 10 years to support my claim. While other local governments and our state government have lost the publics’ confidence I am proud of the hard work we have done to keep Montgomery as strong as we can during these difficult times.