Community High School District 99 will seek the opinions of community members, parents, business owners, students, teachers and staff as part of its strategic planning process, which will be launched this summer.

The key tool in gathering data will be focus groups, organized for North High constituents, South High constituents, District staff and community members. To keep the number of each focus group to 8-12, members will be invited to participate. In addition, all community members will have an opportunity to provide comments online. In total, more than 20 different focus groups will be held. Interviews with Board of Education members will also be included.

At first blush it appears to be a similar approach to the charettes used by the village in the past.  Interesting spin: the participants will be invited to attend.  Just a guess but I doubt EJ or myself will need to set aside time, despite the in-depth reporting and analysis of 99 that has appeared here at DGreport.

Phase I is listening to the input.  Phase II will analyze the data and use it accordingly.  The results will be presented at a January 10, 2011 BOE retreat.  It has not been noted if the planned retreat will be open to the public, but it’s almost guaranteed, given 99BOE’s habit of hiding behind closed doors that a meeting of this importance will not be taped or recorded.

There, the Board will review its mission statement, create a vision statement and develop an analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, known as a SWOT analysis. Also at the retreat, the Board will set short and long-term goals and prioritize them.

Once goals are set, the third phase of the plan will be put into action: The implementation phase. An action plan, including assignments for implementing the work and scheduling will be developed.

Facilitating the process will be Dr. Gregory Kuhn, assistant director of public management and training at Northern Illinois University’s Center for Governmental Studies. One of the District’s goals is to replicate the process in the future with District 99 administrators.

Given the dizzying pace of state fiscal erosion and what a deadbeat non-payer the state has become, and given the strained budgets of local taxpayers and the flattened growth of tax receipts, strategic planning is a good idea.  Even better, getting outside input to the process is commendable.

Hopefully the people involved will read over the input on schools compiled through TCD3, the huge database of public input available in the village website.

At the last June council meeting Mayor Sandack referred to 4-5 resident comments on the village website regarding Long Term Financial Planning that starts on June 29th.

The lack of input may be from lack of information. This link will take you direct to a 15 page village summary report on the current financial state, and starting point for next year’s budget-and beyond.

Yes, this does have a direct impact on your taxes and your own budgets.  Yes, there will be a test.

Comments on any topic related to budget, spending, whatever can be directed to: lrfp@downers.us

One thing contributing to the budget squeeze is something government taxing bodies do that we all do: borrow money.  They do it via bonds, which are debt securities with longer than 10 year maturities.The basic idea behind municipal borrowing is to spread the cost of a project time-wise to capture a larger percentage of resident users who benefit from the product of the borrowing.  By borrowing money for a fire station, that 20 year debt is repaid by a wider range of taxpayers than if it was paid for cash on the barrel head by who live here right now.  At least, that’s how it’s been explained to me by various village managers over the years (note: current VM Fieldman was not one of them).

You can click on any graph for larger images. The first graph on the right shows deficit borrowing since 1998.  With the exceptions of two years, DG has borrowed money each year to do something right away, and planned to pay it back over time.  At the front end most of this was TIF borrowing to buy and assemble properties for the Acadia on the Green development and the Parking Garage.  1998 represents $3 million borrowed for Fairview Avenue reconstruction, and a dedicated 1.5 cent/gallon gasoline tax was enacted to pay for the bond.  There was also a 2001 $4 million bond issue to install automated water meter readers throughout the village, and water fund revenues were dedicated to pay for it.  Both of these bonds have dedicated single sources to pay for them, so in some ways can be considered Revenue Bonds, but they both have a backstop of the taxpayer should anything go awry, so they are counted by the village as general obligation bonds.

The rest of the bonds issued before 2007 are for the Central Business District Tax Increment Finance District- The CBD TIF that we’ve reported on in the past.  While there are specific TIF Bonds, here in DG our TIF bands are still general obligation bonds.  When the village started issuing them, there was no Tax Increment to pay for them.  All the way up through today, DG still relies on general fund tax receipts and parking fund money transfers to make TIF bond payments, although it has been said those general funds have been repaid out of the TIF fund and accounts are now in balance.

The neon blue represents bond re-fundings.  These are typically done to take advantage of lower interest rates, lower the Total Interest Costs (TIC) of the borrowing.  Usually, as is the case here, the cost of issuing the bonds are more than made up for by the interest savings.  This does not reduce the outstanding principle, it replaces it.  In the case of the almost $10 million borrowed in 2005, it replaced the remaining balance of $12.7 million in 1999 and 200 borrowings.  On the down side, like when you refinance a home, the time span extends back out again, so the village, although paying less, is paying longer.

Some refi bonds. like the 2008A bond issue that refunds 1999, 2000, and 2003 bonds, have odd payment schedules.  This looks almost like a balloon payment loan, with the last two payments being whoppers.  Look for those to be dinked around with before the balloon pops in 2020.

The Series 2009 bonds refunded $12 million in bond debt from 2003.  After paying about $1.125 million a year for the first 6 years, the payments dropped to around $1.04 million a year.  Over the next ten years that saves the village over $600,000 in interest costs-just like you refinance a home when it makes sense.  Anyone who bought a house in the 12% mortgage early ’80′s is probably a refi expert.

There are basically three types of debt in the village: TIF debt, stormwater debt, and other debt like Fairview and the AMR’s).  The graph at right shows the total debt payments for all three types of debt has sort of piled up on us.  Keep in mind the TIF increment is supposed to pay for the TIF debt, but that’s money that may not be available to spend elsewhere for things like streets and infrastructure repairs.  TIF revenues have limited uses, and generally have to be used within the TIF district itself.  Although Village Hall and the Police Station are within the CBD TIF, no TIF generated funds can be spent on public facilities.  Blame that on past abuse where cities and villages used the TIF for new Taj Mahal Civic Centers.  Can’t be done anymore.

If you think $8 million a year for the next three years for debt payments is steep, it is.  At least $2.5 million of that is pure interest payments.  Coulda woulda shoulda ten years ago set $2 million a year aside for stormwater projects?  Would have saved us almost $16 million in interest payments over the next 30 years.  All we need is a time machine to go back and we’re all set.   In 2013 the village is scheduled to at least consider another round of stormwater financing, and right now a stormwater utility is far away.

As it is, the last two years of CBD TIF analysis shows that this district won’t come close to paying off the $45.2 million it still owes before the TIF expires in 2021.  In this case the annual payments ramp up every year from a bit under $3 million a year to just over $5 million a year.  It appears this was a clear skies and sunny days repayment schedule.  That may change if it stays dark clouds and rainy days.  Another refi.  This is the blue component of the total payment chart above.

An artifact of the recession is that consumers have reduced revolving (credit card) and installment debt, and increased their rate of saving.  the net result is the average citizen is paying less in interest costs.  Interest doesn’t buy you anything.  Even on your home loan interest costs you only recover a percentage of the interest costs as a tax deduction.

The same is true of muni loans.  Over the next 30 years the village is scheduled to pay $102,044,433 on $71,235,000 of bond debt.  Do the math.  That averages  $1 million a year just for interest.  Doesn’t buy us anything, just pays for the money we already spent.

Ogden Avenues TIF district offers a different model, and in a time when the ground rules for doing things have changed, may offer a guide towards some future spending.  In the case of Ogden avenue, money is saved up first, then spent.  The sidewalks going in along Ogden?  The sewer work being done?  No interest costs.  Zip nada.  Instead of every $1 spent needing $1.40 in repayment, and .40 of non productive expense, it all goes to goods and services, dollar for dollar.

We even have a sorta/kind example of it.  Back in the 80′s the village purchased the homes immediately south of old Fire Station #2.  By buying them when we had the cash, it cut the land acquisition costs by a couple hundred thousand dollars.  By saving, we wouldn’t make much in interest payments right now (check CD rates), but we would avoid further borrowing down the road.

It’s not something that can be done right at the moment, but if-when the economy picks back up, and when the village trims expenses back to the bone, and when there are surpluses, perhaps the idea of saving for future projects will have some attraction.

The current Debt Service Summary from the 2010 budget is here.

– Mayor Ron Sandack at the Sept. 1 Village Council Meeting, at which some residents raised concerns about treatment of trees in road construction zones.

On Tuesday August 4 village staff laid out the next step in getting workable budgets.  Village Manager Dave Fieldman again led the Long Range Financial Planning meeting, and outlined a multi-year game plan to get Downers Grove past the current recession.  The big question?  The graph on the right is The Chart of Pain, showing that at the rate DG is going, we’re going down.  How do you stop that?

Fieldman laid out a three year plan that would require cuts in expenses and increases in revenues, and would tap reserves for a year that would be paid back in starting in 2012.

2010

• Reduce Expenses by $2.0 Million
• Increase the Property Tax Levy for General Fund Operations by $500,000
• Increase Other Revenue Sources by $1,000,000 (6 months)
• Use $1.0 Million of Reserves

2011

• Contain Expenses
• Increase the Property Tax Levy for General Fund Operations by $500,000
• Capture Full Year of Other Revenue Increases (Additional $1 Million)
• Maintain Reserves

2012

• Contain Expenses
• Increase the Property Tax Levy for General Fund Operations by $500,000
• Begin Replenishing Reserves

To pull this off alternate revenue sources have to be tapped; it can’t all come just from cuts to the budget.  While that might include bulk annexations, Deputy Village Manager Mike Baker broke it down similar to what staff had done early last year when they first identified the coming budget problems.  He laid out every possible tax and tax fee for consideration and showed what the revenue input would be.

Home Rule Sales Tax- Currently it adds .75% (.50% for the Capital Projects Fund, and .25% for the Stormwater Fund).  Adding on another .25% would pull in $1,990,000.  This is a no-brainer for a council that kept expressing concern that they had just raised taxes for stormwater project bonds, and didn’t want to get the rap of tax-and-spenders.  Bolingbrook, Woodridge, and Lombard at Yorktown are there or past 1%, so DG would stay in the pack for tax on retail sales.

Natural Gas Utility Tax- Our current tax is .015/therm (that’s 1.5 cents).  The state allowed max is 5 cents, .05/therm.  No one was sure how much a therm was, but a .015/therm increase would generate maybe an additional $489,000 for the village.  Utility taxes have no or very few additional administrative costs and are kind of a stealth tax that you don’t always notice.

I checked my bill for December, and the entire Thoman Compound used 215.98 therms, so an increase of .015/therm would raise my Municipal Gas Use Tax for Downers Grove from $3.24 to $6.48 for that month.

Electricity Tax- Current rate is 3.5%, max is 5%.  Each half percent increase adds $276,000 to the coffers.  A lot of communities max this out.

Hotel Tax- Now it’s at 4.5%, and 50% of that funds the EDC.  Another 8% goes to Community Grants to dole out.  Each .5% increase generates $85,000 for the village.  Adding a mid-priced Marriott brand might help, too; a ton of business travelers like Hampton Inn.

Food & Beverage/Liquor Tax- We don’t do this, mainly an extra tax on prepared foods and drinks at restaurants.  I don’t like the idea of an extra tax on every McCarthy Red I knock back or every Boxty, but a 0.5% tax would pull in $650,000.

Vehicle Stickers- A $20 sticker raises $729,000 for the village.  The state just raised vehicle stickers by $20; that starts in October.

Real Estate Transfer Tax- We don’t have this either.  Based on 2008 sales, a $3 per $1,000 of house value would add $553,000 to the coffers.  How much do you want that DG dream house?  Enough to pay $900 in transfer taxes for that $300,000 attainable middle class home?  Mandatory referendum almost guarantees a no.

Here’s a cheerful Full Bore Implementation Chart (FBIC), which no council member seemed to relish in the slightest:

Commissioner Sean Durkin zeroed in on costs.  After just officially losing his leaf pickup program after a one year run, he made it pretty clear he was not pleased with the idea of tax increases, and expecting redoubled efforts to find some way to chop (buses), slice (buses), and dice expenses (buses).  And lay down some common sense props to Commissioner Bob Barnett for flatly stating fees are taxes and he doesn’t like to play hide-and-seek; if we need to raise taxes let’s raise taxes and be done with it.

Which of course is the main thing that can be done, and is recommended first off by staff.

Rea Estate Taxes- Every $20 increase per $100,000 in EAV (roughly a $300,000 home) would increase revenues by $500,000.  Steady predictable revenue with no added administrative costs.

That might jack the rate way up, but there’s no PTELL limit on municipal tax rates for Home Rule communities,  and declining real estate values don’t effect the village.  Unlike taxing bodies that figure out what the maximum increase in the rate can be, and then figure out how much money that gives them (think school districts), the village figures out what the levy needs to be and derives the real estate tax rate as needed.

Here’s a couple extra ideas:

Teardown Tax- Hinsdale has one.  You want to tear down that house; $10,000, please.  DG has one of the highest teardown rates in the Chicago area, and the teardowns are being replaced by expensive luxury homes.  When times were good, DG saw over 140 tear downs each year for four straight years.  2007 had almost 100, and 2008 had 55. It was a hot topic then, and when times get better it will be again.  Face it, the homes being built are high priced luxury homes, the higher end communities all have something like it, and another $10,000 to a $1 million plus home isn’t going to kill the project.  I can’t wait for my builder buddies to show up with tar and feathers.

Raise fees for permits- Parades, picnics, beer tents, races, remodeling, house additions, you name it, raise them 10%.

Red Light Cameras- I know what you’re saying, “Mark, you are against RLC!”  I am implacably opposed to leasing out law enforcement to for-profit mercenaries, I am opposed to a violation of every person’s Fourth Amendment Right to Due Process, and I think everyone should be troubled by how RLC breeches consent of the governed (a binding referendum vote should be a requirement) , but…

Damn those things generate big bucks, and I have always maintained so long as that was the driving motivation-generating revenue-and everyone is honest about that being the real reason for putting them in, let’s have at it.  Belmont & Ogden, Ogden & Fairview, 75th & Main, will all generate a ton of cash for BS right-turn-on-red tickets.  Every study agrees on that: RTOR is the holy grail of cash cows.  As a bonus, council members will be able to reach out and talk with a much larger cross section of the community.  Angry drivers will reach out to them with helpful opinions about where they can go.

Wrapping it up, if you’re paying attention, you’ll notice staff is saying we need and extra $2,500,000 for 2010 ($3M annualized), an extra $1,500,000 on top of that for 2011, and another $1,000,000 on top of the first two for 2012.  The likely scenario is real estate taxes go up as indicated, so everyone’s $300,000 home sees the village portion of their real estate tax bill go up $20 each year for three years.

Increase other revenue sources means a $2,000,000 annual increase year one (it only happens the last six months, so it collects $1,000,000 the first partial year), anther $1,000,000 on top of that in 2011, and another $500,00 on top of both of those in 2012.

Add in the fudge factor, and look again at the Full Bore Implementation Chart.  $5,500,000 plus or minus…

The final Long Range Financial Planning meeting is scheduled for Tuesday August 18th after the regular council meeting.

Bulk annexation

175 homes, 424 people.

One tool for revenue enhancement staff showed council is bulk annexation of five areas currently unincorporated, starting with the unincorporated northeast side of Downers Grove.  This is an area already residential zoned that would bring net extra tax revenue to the village, to the tune of about $155,000 a year.

Currently, it’s a mix of higher end homes and older more modest homes that, in a better economy, would be tear down fodder. Increased services to residents such as police, fire, streets, snow plowing, would be offset by village getting a share of an real estate taxes and fees driven by an area EAV in excess of $34.6 million.

This is part of what staff termed a “Grow the Base” strategy.  The five areas that are currently unincorporated might be annexed into the village whole rather than the current piecemeal one lot at a time approach.  These areas are contiguous to the village, and in some cases almost totally withing village boundaries.

Fire Department

Expect some union push back on this but Chief Ruscetti is doing what councils past and present have asked him to: figure out how to do more with less.

NOTE: Rob Pekelder, the Secretary of the Downers Grove Professional Firefighters Association (DGPFA) has written that the union has  taken no official position in support of or opposition to this proposal. HT to Mr. Pekelder for the information.

In this case, the FD staff has asked council to consider exploring sharing a facility and crew with the Woodridge-Darien Fire Protection District.  Their Station #2 covered for our Station #2 at Main and 55th while it was being built.  The net result would be a 5 man crew at the DWFPD station on Hobson, with both an ambulance and an engine.

Save money, cover better .

The FD staff says they would still meet all response time criteria, and by having both vehicles at the station on call, enhance service to both communities.  Staff estimated a savings of about $200,000 a year with the above changes.

By eliminating the Fire Station facility in Ellsworth Business Park, the village could use that land for a new Police Station Facility and avoid land acquisition costs,  helping reduce costs for that facility.

Stormwater Utility

Rain, rain, go away...

Staff estimates the village currently spends almost $900,000 a year on maintaining a system that is incomplete, and that has almost $37 million in capital costs scheduled over the next five years.  That adds up to an annual need of about $8 million each year.

Not every budget response considered is expense reduction, and a Stormwater Utility Tax Fee Cost Thingy has been an item brought forward every year as a possible way to pay for expensive stormwater projects.  It proposes creating a Stormwater Utility Cost Thingy as a business organization like the Water Utility or an Electric Utility.  Subject to special government regulation or contained within an existing department like Public Works, it would charge residents on their tax bill for their use of the Stormwater System.

The saying goes: Talk is cheap; whiskey costs money.

This might provide a financial incentive for on-site mitigation such as rain gardens, rain barrels, use of permeable paving materials, and other means to limit run-off and mitigate on-site stormwater.

Most people will associate a stormwater utility fee with a tax, especially as it would show up on your tax bill.  It would also have costs for getting it up and running, and on-going additional staff would be needed for administrative and customer service functions.

To kick it off  Village Manager Dave Fieldman ran through some quick numbers…

All the cutting and scrimping and leaving staff positions unfilled for this year, was just that: for this year.  After all that, next year there’s a projected $4 million budget gap, growing to $6.5 million in 2013 if no changes are made.  There’s three ways to address the gap:

a) cut services

b) increase revenues

C) both of the above

The general assumption of staff is that c) will be the correct answer.  There were two exersizes staff provided council with.  The first was called the Long Range Financial Planning Village Services Exersize (LRFPVSE…they may want to work on the names of this stuff so it makes a better acronym).  In it, roughy 80+ things were given a 1-5 rank, 1 being lowest and 5 being highest priority to the village.  Unsurprisingly, things like Capital Improvements: Stormwater (New), Police Response, Police Patrol, Emergency Fire Response, Snow Removal, Emergency Medical Response, and several others ranked highest.  No brainer basic muni services.

Lowest ranking items were things like Domestic Animal Control, (Wild Animal Control ranked a bit higher), Leaf Collection, Historic Preservation, Holiday Recognition Program, Ice Sculpture Festival, Commuter Shuttle (pretty sure on this I’ll double check), and the Taxi Subsidy Program for seniors were among the lowest ranked.  The largest group was the middle, including things like the 4th of July Parade, Sidewalk Maintenance, Tree planting, New Sidewalks, Crossing Guard Program, Green Operations, and Downtown Beautification.

Village staff identified seven possible strategies to deal with budget planning;

• Implement operating efficiencies
• Enhance revenue base
• Reduce/eliminate village services
• Reduce/eliminate village funding programs
• Reduce/eliminate village events
• Increase/enhance property tax revenues
• Increase/enhance other revenue sources

The second quiz was the Solutions and Strategies Prioritization Exercise General Fund Structural Gap (SASPEGFSG…really, guys, the acronyms are just not there).  The categories matched up with the above for the most part, but here the exercise was to assign a portion of 20 “chips” to each strategy.  Staff then tallied everything and did a fast and dirty Mean/ Median/Minimum Chips Assigned/Maximum Chips Assigned data breakout.  There’s plenty of ways to misinterpret the raw data, so here’s my spin on the numbers.

Increase the Tax Base via Economic Development. This includes growing EAV, sales tax base, utility taxes through annexation and economic development.  Kind of a no-brainer.  Score 1.00/1/1/1.  Out of a possible 0-1 chips, it scored a 100%.  Greg Bedalov and Linda Kunze were sitting behind me smiling; if you’ve been reading DGreport you know they’re doing their part.  Weighted (1 of 61 chips gives it a 0.82% weight) knocks it way down.

Improve Operating Efficiencies. Provide existing services at or near current levels but at reduced costs.  this could include reducing staffing levels.  Score 1.71/2/0/2.  Out of a possible 0-2 chips, it scored 85.5%, or 2.8% weighted

Reduce or Eliminate Existing Services. This includes reducing staff levels.  Score 4.29/5/2/6.  Out of a possible 0-20 chips (pre-prepped as a big category), it scored 21.45% or 7.03% weighted.

Reduce or Eliminate Existing Funding Programs. Score 1.57/2/0/2. Out of a possible 0-2 chips it scored 78.5% or 2.57% weighted.

Reduce or Eliminate Village Community Events. Score 2.85/3/1/4.  Out of a possible 0-4 chips, it scored 71.25%, or 4.67% weighted.

Increase/the Property Tax Levy. Score 3.57/4/0/6.  Out of a possible 0-20 chips, it scored 17.85% or 5.85% weighted

Increase/Enhance Other Revenue Sources. this includes increasing existing revenue sources and introducing new revenue sources.  Score 5.00/4/2/9.  Out of a possible 0-12 chips it scored 41.66% or 8.33% weighted.

In order, here’s a possible to-do list based on the highly unscientific above:

1. Increase/Enhance Other Revenue Sources.
2. Reduce or Eliminate Existing Services.
3. Increase/the Property Tax Levy.
4. Reduce or Eliminate Village Community Events.
5. Improve Operating Efficiencies.
6. Reduce or Eliminate Existing Funding Programs.
7. Increase the Tax Base via Economic Development.

My percentage assignments are just that, a simple percentage of score, then a percentage of the mean of chips cast for each category.  If it has any basis (which it may not), staff will look to reduce or eliminate existing services, then look to enhance “other” revenue sources (many munis have already cranked up developer fees while it’s really slow).  It’s also possible the village portion of property taxes will go up, and some community events get trimmed.  But it does kind of reflect the sentiment of council that they are going to look for cuts to ease any possible tax/fee increases.

The Powerpoint presentation from the 7/7 meeting is here.

The Long Range Financial Planning Village Services Exercise worksheet is here.

The Solutions and Strategies Prioritization Exercise General Fund Structural Gap worksheet is here.

A buddy downstate emailed me this study, noting one other blogger already has written about it.  His point; there’s a temptation to simply do what generates surplus income for the municipality.If Champaign follows the trends illuminated by the study, they will become a city of high end single family home, high end apartments, and national big box stores.

Would a logical pathway for DG see the CBD and Ogden Avenue taken over by national chains, as they generate (downstate, at least) more sales tax surplus per 1,000 square feet than do local businesses?    See Naperville.

There would be less talk of more middle income, affordable, insert-your-favorite-catchphrase-here types of homes, only high end single family homes and downtown apartments.  Surprisingly, attached homes like the high density townhouses currently languishing unsold around DG (especially downtown), would be cut back; they have a net cost instead of providing a net surplus of revenues.

Note to village: Champaign also plans to raise developer fees across the board to help balance their budget.

Pointing out the obvious, the reason high end homes make money for the muni is any given sized family tends to impose the same level of expenses on a muni whether they live in an  expensive $1-million-plus home or a $300 thousand modest home, yet the real estate tax based revenues make the big home owner pay well over three times more.  The cost burden on the library, schools, police, fire, etc. are about the same.

But without that imbalance, DG would be up the creek like every other western ‘burb.  We need our expensive homes with their expensive RE tax bills, and generally speaking, most owners of the big expensive homes can afford the burden.

Acting village manager Dave Fieldman acknowledged the summit would have been improved by allowing time at the end to share and summarize comments made by participants. Despite that shortcoming, staff and commissioners heard the majority of comments as they circulated from table to table during the course of the evening, he said.

Fieldman also noted that comments are carried forward from year to year. For example, the green energy item raised at the 2007 summit has been incorporated into the new strategic plan.

Given the time pressures the council faces as it begins the budget process, the consensus seemed to be that the report from Lyle Sumek Associates Inc. should be accepted at the Sept 2 meeting. Only Commissioner William Waldack favored an extra week or two to give summit participants a chance to review the document.

Commissioner Geoff Neustadt disagreed: “What we’ve heard from residents at the Citizen Summit and strategic planning meetings isn’t going to change so I don’t see the need to delay approval of the document.”

As a participant in this year’s summit, I’d agree that the information isn’t subject to change and therefore acceptance of the report needn’t be delayed. I was also pleased to hear the strategic plan and a summary of Citizen Summit comments will be provided to participants, although it’s currently available to everyone who wishes to see it on the village website.

It seems that the main concern of any resident who shares their concerns with the village is that they will be heard.

The mayor says they are. “The strategic plan flowed from what we we hear,” he said. “This process is simply an alignment of goals that we’ve taken from the citizens — and as leaders and and representatives of the residents that’s our job.

“And now we have to put it in budget format and we have a strict time line for the budget.”

The event brings the village council and senior staff together with residents to brainstorm issues for consideration during the strategic planning process. Among this year’s attendees were many of the usual suspects including DGreport regulars Mark Thoman and John Schofield.

Under the direction of consultant Lyle Sumek, tables of residents worked through four rounds of questions designed to elicit the perceived strengths and weaknesses of the village, as well as 5-year goals and action items for the coming year.

Commissioners and staffers rotated among the tables for each round, keeping the conversation on point and taking voluminous notes.

They took notes so I didn’t have to. But among the key points that came out of the discussion I shared with Becky Rheintgen, Bob Barnett, John Kikta, Dave Matthies and Tom LeCren were concerns about the village’s customer service effort, particularly staff’s consistency and cooperation in dealing with requests from the public. Code services, stormwater and communication also figured prominently in our discussion.

These were just a few of many issues tackled by the conclave, which turned out over-sized page after over-sized page of concerns, challenges and possible solutions regarding the issues facing our village.

Sumek said the council will see all comments made, no matter how lowly, which means a voluminous dossier is being prepared, possibly even as I write. Hope the commissioners are quick studies; the strategic planning sessions that will make use of all that information are scheduled for today at 5 p.m. and tomorrow at 8:30 a.m. at Fire Station 2.

The strategy sessions are open to the public, although they didn’t make it onto the village’s weekly list of meetings. When I asked Sumek for the times and place of the meetings, the jovial consultant got a little brisk, cutting off further conversation after assuring me they’d been noticed properly. Not that I’d asked.

Just for the record, the council will not take public comment at the meetings, but it will be interesting to which of last night’s widely ranging discussion gained enough traction to be included in next year’s action plan.

All in all I found it to be an enjoyable exercise, debating the village’s near future. Like all residents, I like to be asked for my opinion. If this is transparency, count me in.