As of late Monday afternoon, April 13, 888 village of Montgomery water customers had contacted the village seeking financial assistance through a village-sponsored program to help pay their water bills, Justin VanVooren, the village's finance director, told the village board during a meeting Monday evening.

The village board, in turn, voted 5-1 to adopt a resolution in support and ratifying Village President Matt Brolley's executive order issued March 31 offering to pay up to $100 on the utility bills the village mailed April 1 to its estimated 9,000 water customers in the village and the unincorporated Boulder Hill subdivision.

Board member Dan Gier cast the lone negative vote on the motion to adopt the resolution.

In issuing the executive order, Brolley said the village was offering to help pay its customers' water bill "no questions asked" since many of them are now facing financial difficulties due to the continuing COVID-19 corornavirus pandemic.

The village bills its residents and Boulder Hill water customer every two months and the typical bill for a village resident is about $100, Brolley noted.

"So for most people this (offer) will cover their entire bill," he said.

To receive assistance, the village is asking its customers to contact the village directly via email, at Covid19Assistance@montgomeryil.org or by phone 331-212-9020. Village staff is asking residents to be sure to leave their name, address, and phone number when requesting to participate in the offer.

During Monday's board meeting which was conducted remotely by board members and viewable online on the village's YouTube channel, Brolley noted he had discussed the financial assistance offer individually with board members prior to issuing his executive order.

Brolley told the board that he has heard from many village residents that they appreciate that there is "not a whole lot of red tape" that goes with applying for the assistance.

He added that the idea behind the assistance is to provide some financial relief to residents who are facing some "tremendous unknowns" with their household budgets due to the pandemic.

Gier, however, said while he is not opposed to offering residents some financial assistance, he continues to have concerns about the impact the cost of the assistance will have on the village's budget.

Gier also noted the village extended the assistance to its customers in Boulder Hill, but residents of the 120 unit Anderson Senior Apartments who reside in the village and who do not pay their own water bills have not been offered other assistance from the village.

"And we haven't done anything for small businesses," he said, adding, "I would have preferred we had had an emergency open meeting so we could discuss this as a group because I had a lot of questions and concerns."

Gier noted that as a former village employee for many years he saw first hand the impact that the 2008 recession had on the village's finances when staff members were laid off, services were reduced and equipment purchases delayed.

"I would have been more comfortable if we could have talked about this as a group in open session and we could have asked some questions from staff in particular as far what the impact this will have on us," Gier said.

"It's a point well taken," Brolley told Gier. However, Brolley noted that residents of the Anderson Farm apartments do not receive water bills from he village "so there is nothing there for us to rebate."

Continuing, Brolley said he called about 55 of the village's smallest businesses beginning with restaurants to find out "what we can do, if they need help from us." Brolley noted that many of the businesses indicated they had applied for assistance through programs offered by the state and federal government.

Concerning the village's water bills, Brolley said many of the small business owners told him that their landlords pay their water bills as part of their rent.

"I will say, openly, that approving an executive order to abate water bills for what amounted to about $900,000 is not something that I took lightly which is why I called every board member prior to doing that to have those conversations," Brolley said. "I certainly would have much preferred to have a sit down meeting like this just for transparency sake, but the water bills were going out or where supposed to printed by Tuesday of last week so time was of the essence and I just ask the board for a little bit of discretion on that."