It was a luxury for the Village of Manteno to rebate homeowners’ local property tax the past several years.

It is, however, one that will be going away as the village is battling a budget deficit for Fiscal Year 2026-27.

Eliminating the village’s portion with the homeowners’ property tax rebate will save Manteno $1.3 million, but it is still trying to whittle away at a projected $1.7 million deficit for the next year’s budget, which begins May 1.

Village officials have been working for several weeks on the budget, and they’re currently on the third version.

“We’ve been fine-tuning it,” Village Administrator Chris LaRocque said at the April 6 Board meeting.

The final version of the budget will be finalized and voted on at Monday’s board meeting. There will be a 6 p.m. budget public hearing Monday at the start of the meeting. There will likely be a deficit of about $1.5 million.

“It is what it is,” LaRocque said on Tuesday. “We’ve operated under a deficit budget for the last three or four years, in part because of the projects that we were doing. That was the biggest reason for the previous deficits. This year, it’s a little different because, just in general, expenses are going up again.”

LaRocque said at the end of the current fiscal year, which concludes April 30, there will be a $3.2 million deficit, which will leave approximately $5.8 million in the general fund.

“So budgets are kind of a road map, but even like last year, we did not have the property tax rebate in the budget because nobody put the change in,” he said.

With the change in the mayor and some board members after the election in April of 2025, the rebate was never discussed. In May, the board decided to go with the property tax rebate, and that added $1.2 million to the projected deficit of $2 million.

“We just do an amendment at the end of the year to correct the line items based on what the actual numbers are,” LaRocque said.

LaRocque cites several areas of the budget that have increased over the previous year. Those include increases of $76,000 for police pensions, state revenue reduction of $107,000, interest income decrease of $200,000, legal fees for ongoing litigation of $100,000 against the Concerned Citizens of Manteno, payroll of $247,500, property insurance of $70,000, and Square on Second work of $250,000, among a few other items totaling about $50,000.

The village also pays the garbage fee of $770,000 for homeowners, but that might also be eliminated in the new budget. The village has done the property tax rebate the past four years and paid the garbage fees for eight years.

The third version of the proposed budget for FY 26-27 shows total expenses of $9,122,175 with a projected revenue of $7,349,125, which leaves a budget shortfall of $1,773,050.

At the April 6 Board meeting Trustee Michael Barry said the village has to be conscious of how it’s spending money.

“We don’t have a golden egg at the end of the day, and I don’t see a golden egg down the path,” he said. “And if I did, I’d be the first person to tell you. If there is somebody that comes and approaches us, it will be transparent, especially for me. I guarantee that I’m not going to hide any punches on this. There’s a lot of good things going on in the town, but we also have to be concerned about the future.

“I don’t want to be sitting up here in two years talking about getting a bond to pay our bills, because that’s not fair to anybody. It’s not fair to the residents, and just not the way I’m going to do things.”

LaMore said at the April 6 Board meeting that the village doesn’t want to do away with the activities that Manteno is known for.

“We don’t want to take away the Oktoberfest,” she said. “We want Manteno to continue to thrive, and we want people to continue to come to our village and have a great time here. But we’re just watching the budget. We’re trying to be careful and use your money in the most practical ways. So hopefully we won’t have to trim too much off.”

The village was able to build its general fund in the past two decades with the sale of its water system for $4.5 million to Aqua in 2007 and its wastewater plant for $25 million to Aqua in 2017. It also built a new police station in a former bank building and a new public works building as well as upgrading numerous parks, streetscapes and infrastructure with the money.

At the end of Fiscal Year 26-27 in April of 2027, there will be about $4 million in the general fund.

LaRocque said the village is in good shape with the general fund for the next couple years.

“Obviously, each year they’ll have to try and pare the budget down in order to reduce the deficit or get rid of [the deficit] if they want to maintain that savings account,” he said.