Cite this report as:

Citizen Advisory Committee on Village Finances,

Report of the Citizen Advisory Committee on Village Finances: River Forest, Illinois (River Forest, IL: April 2010).

General Fund Revenues

Collectively, the categories below constitute 80 percent of budgeted general fund revenues for Fiscal Year 2010 (83% if garbage collection fees and transfers from other funds are excluded).

Taxes. Property taxes account for 42 percent of village general fund revenues. Because River Forest is a non–home rule community, state law limits how much the village can increase property taxes in any one year. The limit – or “tax cap” — is 5 percent or the increase in the consumer price index for the previous calendar year, whichever is less. These tax caps limited the increase in the village’s 2010 tax levy (which affects property tax revenues for fiscal years 2010 and 2011) to one tenth of one percent because the Consumer Price Index had risen only 0.1 percent.

Property tax that residents pay to River Forest constitute 11 percent of their total property tax bill, down from 14 percent ten years ago.

The Communication and Utility taxes are a stipulated percentage of resident telephone and electric and gas utilities. Revenues from these sources depend on billings to residents for these services.

Intergovernmental. The sales tax charged in River Forest is 9 percent. One–ninth of this goes to the village itself. Sales tax revenue is sensitive to swings in the economy and declines when sales of taxable goods fall in River Forest.

Ten percent of Illinois income taxes collected by the State are distributed to municipalities based on their population relative to the State’s population. In Fiscal Year 2009, that came to $91.08 for each of River Forest’s 11,636 residents. Thanks to the recession, the Illinois Municipal League reports that the per capita distribution will drop to $77.00 in Fiscal Year 2010. Income tax revenue is sensitive to downturns in the economy.

Licenses and Permits. Fees for building permits account for most of this category. The village raised these fees effective May 1, 2009, but the recession has led to a decline in construction activity here and elsewhere which is why revenue from building permit fees will be less than originally projected.

Charges for Services. Garbage collection fees are the largest item in this category. Since May 1, 2009, River Forest residents have borne the full cost of garbage collection.

General Fund Expenditures

Exhibit B presents an analysis of the village’s budgeted general fund expenses for Fiscal Year 2010 by department and by type of expenditure (salary, benefits, pension, contractual, commodities, capital and Capital Equipment Replacement Fund [CERF]). The CERF builds up cash for major equipment purchases, such as when a fire engine needs to be replaced. The monies are transferred from the General Fund to the CERF.

As a cost–saving measure, River Forest entered into a joint venture to share Emergency 911 services (E–911) known as the West Suburban Consolidated Dispatch Center (WSCDC). Partner communities are Oak Park and Elmwood Park. The E-911 item in Exhibit B represents River Forest’s share of the costs to operate WSCDC. This figure is based on each village’s proportion of call received.

The “Sanitation” item is the cost of garbage collection services paid to Roy Strom & Company. The quarterly garbage collection fee residents pay covers all of this budget line item.

“Capital Items” cover street improvements. They are funded transferring money from other village funds to the general fund. The amount transferred each year equals the actual cost of street improvements such as repaving and other street repairs.

Since the above items are not candidates for budget cuts because they are fund transfers, pass throughs, and payments to a joint venture with other villages, the analysis in Exhibit B lists them separately near the bottom.

As shown in the graph below, 80 percent of discretionary village expenses are personnel–related — salaries, benefits (largely health care), and police and fire pensions. Achieving significant reductions in village expenditures would require significant reductions in village staff and the services they provide.

Figure 5: FY 2010 General Fund Expenditures

Of the village’s remaining 74 employees, 54 in the Police, Fire, and Public Works Departments are represented by unions. Their salaries and benefits are subject to collective bargaining agreements. The agreements with the unions representing police and firefighters require “interest arbitration,” which imposes binding arbitration when the Village and union cannot agree on terms. Such arbitration results in either the city’s or union’s proposal being imposed. By law, the arbitrator cannot arrive at a compromise somewhere between the two proposals. The Illinois Pension Code establishes the amount of police and fire pensions and requires the village to fund them.

The heads of each village department provided the Citizen Committee with detailed information on staffing levels and services as well as the impact of staff reductions on the delivery of village services. The following section of this report summarizes those presentations. Exhibit C shows full–time staffing levels by department for the past decade.

Police Department

The River Forest Police Department has an authorized strength of 31 sworn officers and three civilian personnel. The department provides police patrols, investigations, and community services. Federal, state, and county laws as well as intergovernmental agreements with schools and others require the Police Department to provide specified services. Under the Fiscal Year 2010 budget, the department reorganized itself and eliminated one supervisory position and two patrol officers. Although the village has authorized 31 sworn positions, there are currently just 28 active sworn personnel due to officers being on leave for such reasons extended military service and duty–related medical absence.

Staffing requirements for the village are based on several factors: quality of life services, officer safety, calls for service, crime statistics, population, proximity to the City of Chicago, and foot traffic generated by the Harlem Avenue Green Line CTA station. Current Chief Frank Limon agrees with the staffing levels identified in the staffing requirements study his predecessor prepared. Chief Limon identified minimum staffing requirements for various patrol shifts to the committee and explained how the Police Department meets those requirements with current personnel.

The Police Department receives more than 10,000 calls for service annually. The Department generates revenue for the village through fines for parking violations, administrative towing, enforcement against overweight vehicles on River Forest streets, and other compliance fines.

Chief Limon identified the cost savings and impacts on the level of police protection and services that would result from eliminating sworn officer and administrative positions. Eliminating one or more sworn officer positions would lead to:

• A longer response time for police service calls,
• Increased officer’s safety risks,
• Fewer crime prevention programs,
• Less proactive policing strategies, and
• Possible elimination of the School Resource/Business Liaison Officer which would affect school and youth programs and business partnerships.

oing away with one or more of the three civilian positions would require sworn officers to perform the duties and functions of the eliminated civilian personnel — taking them away from their normal law enforcement duties. The effect would be the same as eliminating sworn officer positions.

Fire Department

The village’s Fire Department responded to 1,861 calls for service in 2008.

The River Forest Fire Department is an “all risk” Fire Department that provides the village with fire suppression, emergency medical services (advanced life support), rescue services, fire prevention, hazardous materials control, public education, and disaster mitigation.

The Department operates three 24–hour shifts with one lieutenant and five firefighters on each shift. At a minimum, each 24–hour shift consists of four firefighters and one lieutenant. Because firefighters work 24–hour shifts every third day, “Kelly Days” are scheduled to give time off to compensate for the fact that a 24–hour shift every third day equates to a 56 work week on an annual basis. Consequently there are four firefighters on duty at any one time.

Impact of eliminating one firefighter per shift. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations (29CFR1910.134(g)(4)) require that four firefighters be available to enter a burning structure. Initially two enter the structure and two remain outside in rescue mode. Any tasks performed by the ‘outside’ team must be work that can be abandoned without placing another firefighter at risk. The engineer/driver of the apparatus is critical to all operations and is not considered part of the ‘outside’ team.

If there are not enough firefighters on the team to meet this requirement, no firefighter could enter the burning structure until firefighters from other villages arrived under the mutual aid agreements in which River Forest participates. Reducing River Forest’s firefighting team by one firefighter per shift would prevent the Fire Department from quickly attacking a fire and would lead to an increased risk of loss of life and property.

An analysis provided to the committee showed that the village would spend more on overtime than it would save by doing away with three firefighter positions (one per shift).

In addition to the 18 firefighters and officers on shift, the department administration includes the Fire Chief, Deputy Fire Chief, Lieutenant in the Fire Prevention Bureau and Lieutenant in the Training Division.

The Deputy Fire Chief operates as the chief officer of operations and supervises all three shifts through the Fire Lieutenants. He also handles several special projects including department disciplinary matters.

The lieutenant in the Fire Prevention Bureau handles code inspections and enforcement of the 310 properties in the village that require an annual inspection as well as all code violations, plan reviews, and public education for schools, commercial businesses, and multifamily assemblies. This individual also responds to emergency calls for service. Eliminating this position will reduce capabilities to respond to secondary EMS (paramedic) responses.

The lieutenant in the Training Division is responsible for mandatory department training required by state law. He also is available to respond to emergencies, and covers scheduled overtime of shift officers which reduces overtime costs to the village.

Public Works Department

The Public Works Department consists of 16 full-time employees. The department’s Director, Assistant Director, two Building and Zoning Inspectors, and Civil Engineering Technician perform these services:

• Administer the village’s subsidy program to protect basements
• Assign service requests from residents to staff (801 in 2008)
• Review all building permits
• Perform inspections to ensure compliance with building and zoning codes
• Oversee construction inspections
• Perform real estate transfer inspections and issue requisite Certificates of Occupancy
• Staff Zoning Board of Appeals hearings and meetings
• Perform engineering design and develop construction drawings and plans for the village’s street improvement program and other infrastructure improvements
• Oversee construction of the various infrastructure maintenance and improvement projects
• Conduct traffic counts and traffic analysis
• Administer and oversee the solid waste collection and disposal contract with Roy Strom & Company
• Process JULIE locates (1,438 in 2008)

Public Works also includes a custodian who handles janitorial duties and performs minor maintenance at village hall, the public works garage, and the West Suburban Consolidated Dispatch Center.

Public Works Operations is staffed by seven Maintenance Workers and two Water Operators supervised by a Director of Operations. Maintenance Workers are cross–trained enabling them to work in several areas of Public Works Operations.

Forestry Operations. Forestry Operations maintains approximately 9,000 trees on village right-of-ways (parkways). They prune these trees on a six-year cycle (each tree is pruned every six years). The cycle had been five years, but was increased to six when the number of maintenance workers was reduced as explained below. Public Works also consults with residents about their private property trees.

treet Operations. Public Works maintains, repairs, and improves approximately 35.5 miles of village streets, alleys, and right-of-ways. Public Works employees perform the following services:

• Street sweeping
• Pothole patching
• Sewer system maintenance
• Sandbagging and flood monitoring response during periods of heavy rainfall
• Fire hydrant maintenance and repair
• Snow plowing and salting of streets
• Manufacture, install and repair street signs
• Push, collect, and haul leaves during leaf collection program (1,700 tons)

Water Operations. The village’s two water operators assure an adequate and continuous uninterrupted flow of high quality water purchased from the City of Chicago for domestic and fire–fighting purposes. These two employees

• Maintain the village’s water distribution system which includes the Pump Station, three pumps, two reservoirs, one elevated tower, miles of water mains, over 300 valves, and more than 400 fire hydrants
• Install and replace water meters and water meter radio read units
• Read water meters – radio read units
• Oversee operation of the Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition computer system that monitors and controls the village’s water distribution system
• Oversee and maintain the village’s water distribution system
• Perform bacteriological and other water quality testing mandated by the U.S. and Illinois environmental protection agencies (EPA and IEPA)

The committee examined how further staff reductions in Public Works would affect village services. During the past three years, the number of maintenance workers was reduced from nine to seven. Currently the Department is struggling to keep up with the work load. Any additional reduction in the number of maintenance workers would slow down snow and ice removal which can affect public safety. Any additional reduction in the number of maintenance workers could lead to extending the tree trimming cycle to seven years and possibly contracting out some services. Replacing Maintenance Workers with contracted services is unlikely to result in significant savings to the Village.

Administration Department

The Administration Department consists of six individuals: the Village Administrator, an Administrative Assistant, the Village Treasurer, an Accounting Supervisor, a Utility Billing Clerk, and a Cashier/Front Desk Receptionist. The Assistant Village Administrator position has been vacant since 2007. A substantial portion of the Utility Clerk’s salary is charged to the Village’s Water and Sewer Fund.

Eliminating any of these positions would lead to work not being performed or having to be outsourced which would result in no financial savings to the village. For example, without a Front Desk Receptionist, the village front desk could not serve residents who come to village hall. Doing away with the Utility Billing Clerk position would result in water bills not being prepared. Eliminating either the Accounting Supervisor or the Village Treasurer result in none of the required accounting, cash management, financial reporting, budgeting, accounts payable and payroll tasks being done and would require that these tasks be outsourced. These are essential tasks that cannot be abolished.

Staffing Survey

To help determine whether the amount of staff River Forest employs is out of line with the size of the village, staff complied the information shown in the graph below for comparably–sized communities in the Chicago area. These are communities with a population and land area within 50 percent of River Forest’s. This research included staff levels (number of employees) in each respective department of the selected towns. The data was distilled down to a ratio of employees of each town per thousand residents. Because several of the towns do not have their own full-time fire department, fire department numbers were excluded. As illustrated in the graph above, the number of village employees per thousand residents is lower than in 72 percent of the comparable municipalities.

Figure 6: Full–time Employees Per Thousand Residents in Comparable Communities

Precise comparisons are difficult due to the wide variation in the services provided by different public works departments. For example, it is rare for a public works department to perform building inspections, engineering, right of way maintenance operations, water operations, and zoning support like River Forest’s Public Works Department does. The other factor that makes precise comparisons difficult is the variation from town to town as to which functions they outsource. Despite these caveats, these comparisons illustrate that River Forest staffing tends toward the lean side.

The complete staffing survey is published in Exhibit C.

One committee member sought to learn why the cost of River Forest Police and Fire Department services was significantly greater than Western Springs, a comparably–sized community. A comparison of the two villages’ most recent annual budgets for these departments shows higher costs in River Forest.

Table 3: Comparison of River Forest and Western Springs Public Safety Expenses

Department	River Forest	Western Springs
Police	$4,210,631	$3,504,000
Fire	$2,942,372	$1,464,268

The village’s police and fire chiefs provided the committee with written responses to this request, which are presented in Exhibit D. River Forest has a larger Police Department (28 sworn officers compared to 21 in Western Springs) in part due to fewer crimes being reported in Western Springs (137) than in River Forest (497). The difference in the police budgets is due to contributions to the police pensions being about $395,180 less for Western Springs and salaries and benefits totaling $520,676 less than in River Forest which has seven more sworn officers that Western Springs. With smaller amounts spent on contracts, commodities, and capital expenses, the annual cost per sworn police officer is nearly $10,000 less in River Forest.

The difference in cost for fire protection is attributable to Western Springs using a volunteer fire department rather than fire–fighting professionals. The committee does not recommend switching to a volunteer fire department in River Forest. The committee does recommend that the village board consider alternative fire protection models to reduce costs such as establishing a multi– village fire protection district with nearby villages.

After considering the staffing survey, current village staffing levels, previous staff reductions, and the impact on village services from any further staff reductions, the committee declined to recommend further staff reductions. One committee member did rule out further staff reductions, while others concluded that the village has a very lean staff or is understaffed in some departments.

Other Expenditures That Can Be Reduced

The committee next analyzed other general fund expenditures consisting of contractual services and commodities. The committee reviewed budgeted expenditures of $25,000 or more — which amount to 71 percent of General Fund of these costs. Exhibit E lists all of these expenditures There was extensive discussion about the nature of these items and why they were necessary village expenditures. The committee identified several expenditures that could be eliminated and made other recommendations, one of which has already been implemented.

The village currently pays the salaries of school crossing guards in the village. The committee recommended discontinuing this practice and that the schools should pay the costs of their school crossing guards. The estimated annual savings to the village is approximately $100,000.

The village also pays the cost of a nurse who serves the parochial schools in the Village. The committee recommended discontinuing this practice and that parochial schools pay for their nurse. The estimated annual savings to the village is approximately $20,000.

The village is a member of the Intergovernmental Risk Management Agency (IRMA). IRMA is a risk sharing pool of 74 local municipalities and special service districts in northeastern Illinois that have joined together to manage and fund their property, casualty, and worker’s compensation claims. All members also participate in a comprehensive risk management program. The committee recommended that the village obtain competitive quotes for the coverages provided by IRMA.

As previously noted, River Forest shares the cost of the West Suburban Consolidated Dispatch Center (WSCDC) with two other villages. Our share of the costs of the WSCDC’s E–911 services are based on relative call volumes. The committee observed that the village’s share of costs of WSCDC seemed high given the relative size of River Forest compared to Oak Park and particularly Elmwood Park. Prompted by the Committee’s discussion, River Forest village staff initiated procedural changes in the Police Department that are expected to reduce call volume and, consequently, the village’s share of WSCDC costs.

Chapter 4

Sources of Immediate Revenue Increases

Sources of Future Revenue Increases