Somewhere in the arduous process of Manteno officials finalizing its Fiscal Year 2027 budget, a misconception arose that the village was out of money.

Aghast!

At the end of Monday’s Board meeting, Trustee Todd Crockett addressed a comment made during public participation that the village was out of money. He said it has been discussed in the past and called it a “false narrative.”

“When we say the village does not have any money, that’s simply not true,” Crockett said. “The village does have money. In fact, I’m looking at our latest report here in our general fund, we have almost $6 million.”

He added when former Mayor Tim Nugent left office, the village had around $8 or $9 million, and the Board has been trying to be good stewards with the money the village does still have.

“Obviously we want to provide as many amenities and services as possible,” Crockett said. “But we don’t have $25 or $30 million like we did in the past, because we’ve got a new police station, we’ve got a new public works building, we’ve got beautiful parks and we’ve got good equipment for our departments.”

Moving forward, Crockett said the village has to look at how it’s going to continue to provide services and maintain a fund balance.

“One thing that we should be proud of as a board and a community is that we don’t have any debt,” he said. “And I can say there’s probably not very many villages of our size in the area that have no debt. … But to say that the village has no money, I’m sure the mayor doesn’t want to be known as the mayor of the village with no money. I don’t want to be a trustee of a village with no money. So that’s just simply not true.”

After the meeting Mayor Annette LaMore reiterated that the village does indeed have money.

“We’re so used to having $25 million in the bank,” she said. “Because we had all these projects and spent it, we don’t have that [much] anymore. But we still have money, and there’s money coming in, gas tax, tax, people’s taxes. I still really want to give people their rebates, so we’ll see how it goes. We still have a working budget.”

The FY2027 budget was approved on April 20, and it’s projected to have a $1.6 million deficit which would still leave the village in the black of approximately $4.2 million on April 30, 2027. If the village decides to amend the $9.1 million budget to add in the local property tax rebate, it would take $1.2 million off that surplus.

Trustee Mike Barry said he backs what Crockett said about the general fund balance.

“Yes, we do have money, but if we keep spending the way we’ve been spending, we’re not going to have any money,” he said. “So all we’re trying to do is just narrow it down and say, ‘Hey, is this really, truly a need right now, or is it a want?”

Manteno sold its wastewater treatment plant to Aqua Illinois for $25 million in 2017 to build up its general fund balance. Village Administrator Chris LaRocque said part of that money went back to the homeowners.

“We’ve given away almost $8 million dollars in the last 10 years since we sold the sewer system, for the property tax rebates and paying for the garbage [fees],” LaRocque said. “... And then we built the public works [building]. We built the police department. We paid off a bond that we had on the golf course so that we could sell the golf course. That was like $1.7 million that went for that.

“We paid off what we had left on the village hall that we bought 10 years earlier. So all of our main facilities now, as far as we’re concerned, are set for a long time. There’s room in all three of those facilities for additional growth.”