It is the stuff of local governance. A thorough debate at Oak Park’s village board table about how to pay for several vital and expensive capital improvement projects was held recently and, while no final decision was made, we did learn something about the governing philosophy of multiple trustees and the village president.
We’ve got no criticism here. It was a good conversation and the eventual conclusion seems likely to be some middle ground on the debate over how much of Oak Park’s hard-won cash reserve should be spent down on projects vs. how much debt should be taken on to pay for long-term projects.
Top of the list of big ticket projects are major streetscaping and sewer replacements on the 100 block of south Oak Park Avenue. This project has been considered crucial for over a decade as the pipes running under the street are well more than a century old and the streetscape itself has been in place for four decades and is beyond worn out.
Between the below-ground work and the street-level upgrades, the cost is an eye-popping $20 million. But it has to be done and it is scheduled to happen in 2025.
Also in the planning phase are an ambitious remodel of the Oak Park Village Hall and the construction of a new police station. There is $3 million already set aside for the design phase of those projects. But when it is time to actually start construction, the price tag was last estimated to fall between $132 million and $138.3 million.
Right now the village is sitting on almost $46 million in cash reserves. That is far more than the 10% to 20% reserve recommended by municipal finance experts.
Multiple trustees and President Vicki Scaman are leaning toward spending down the reserves to help fund these once-in-multiple-generations projects. Some suggest a middle ground of spending down a portion of the reserves while inevitably issuing bonds to fund the bulk of the work over the coming years.
The theory of borrowing to fund these projects is that over the next 20 to 30 years, future taxpayers will benefit from each of these projects and so they should help pay back the debt incurred to make these investments. We agree with that philosophy while also supporting paying $15 million to 20 million of the total costs from reserves.
Meanwhile, this is a worthwhile discussion for the village board and its staff to have.