Oak Park’s Village Board Finance Committee met for the first time this year to review a consultant’s report on the village’s long term financial health.
The Finance Committee, made up of several active village trustees and other volunteer community members, met May 21. The committee reviewed the findings of a Baker Tilly report on Oak Park’s next 10 years of financial planning.
The village signed a contract with the consultant in 2024, with Baker Tilly reviewing years of village revenue and expenditures, planned capital projects and six village funds to produce the report. Findings from the study included a detailed look at the village’s general fund, with Baker Tilly finding that “if adjustments are not made, annual
shortfalls are expected to deplete general fund reserves by fiscal year 2030” as revenue is not currently projected to keep pace with expenditures.
“It’s just my perspective on having run these numbers is that the village enjoyed several years where it had significant surpluses and was able to build up that fund balance, but I think economics-wise, we’ve kind of turned a corner there, and I don’t know whether the village is going to see these big surpluses anymore,” said Matt Stark, a manager at Baker Tilly. “What I’m modeling is that you’re likely looking at some operating shortfalls as things are currently, so those will need to be addressed in your coming budgets.”
“Unless you can come up with more revenue or cut some of your expenses, this is not sustainable,” said Stark.
Kevin Bueso, Oak Park top finance staffer, said bringing the report before the committee early in this year’s budget cycle was a way for the village to strategically plan for the future to avoid potential fund balance issues.
“It’s more saying this is where the village is at right now financially, and then if we as an organization continue on this spending pattern based on these assumptions, this is where you would end up,” Bueso said. “The primary objective behind this is to set the stage or set a habit of us coming to this finance committee early in the fiscal year, so that we can start these conversations, and we can provide the direction that departments need in terms of staffing, in terms of fees, in terms of what revenue to expect for the future. “
Addressing the general fund balance in the future could require the village to increase the property levy by more than the 3% per year target it has long set if the village is to maintain its current services, Bueso said.
“If we want to provide that certain level of service, the revenue has to come from somewhere,” he said. ‘We’re going to have to have conversations about we can no longer stick to that 3% increase on the levy side, for example, if we want to fund operations as they are.”
Oak Park’s budget surpluses had come largely as result of the COVID-19 pandemic, where the village saw special American Rescue Plan Act funding come in as the municipality operated with reduced staffing and fewer capital projects, Stark said.
“On the budget side it wound up being pretty positive for a lot of municipalities and school districts and whatnot, because their payroll was way below whatever was budgeted,” he said. “As we’ve come out of that time, everybody has been filling vacancies with recruiting as well as they can, so you’re losing that lever. So there was a period of time where everybody was coming in way under budget, and everyone that I work with has been closing that gap ever since.”
The challenge now for Oak Park and other governments years after the pandemic is now how to catch up on necessary projects while maintain a balanced budget.
“We substantially limited levy increases based on that decreased spending,” said Trustee Brian Straw, who attended the meeting just hours after his federal protest misdemeanor charges were dismissed. “And now when we’re trying to catch up on deferred maintenance, get back to appropriate staffing levels, we have a reduced levy base, and it’s creating a structural deficit.”
Bueso also said Oak Park’s finance department is currently beefing up its staffing to help meet the village’s strategic planning needs.
“I do think we have a lot of things that are playing that are sort of coming together pretty well, one is the finance department building capacity,” Bueso said. “We’re going to have a deputy CFO joining next week, a comptroller next month, and then a senior accountant next month as well. So we’re going to be full staff, we’re going to be able to take some of this capacity.”
Oak Park’s finance committee will continue meeting over the rest of the year to finalize 2027’s budget and refine the village’s long term fiscal strategy.