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Riverside Info » About Riverside

31. spatny
    Member

    Tony -I hope you are right and I am wrong about where the national economic trends are going, because we will all be better off with your rosier predictions than mine. But I see nothing to back that up, so I'll have to stick with mine. If you are right than I will buy you a beer or two at the Chew because I should be able to afford it. Of course, if I am right I want you to do the same, because I'll need it!

    I think we will all need to stop thinking we can have things just because we want them - sort of the credit-card mentality. When it comes to Village services under the kind of conditions we have now, let alone the one that I think we will have next year, I think it does a disservice to pontificate about what we owe to our heritage or legacy or future generations... What we need to do is get through the heavy weather... and I think that's what the Board is trying to do - at least some of them.

    Posted Sunday Oct 11, 2009 13:52 #

32. CuriousResident
    Member

    I've read some form of notion of "we need to get used to the new norm of what the village will be able to offer/support".

    It makes sense relative to our current economy, but I'm struggling to recall a "shiny full service village" during supposed "the glory days" that we just lived through. I'm not ragging on what we have had, just saying it was not at a level you'd hold up in comparison against similar demographic villages.

    From a big picture perspective, we likely need to review not just "level of service" but our whole approach to our village government. I wonder if anyone has looked at villages that are "doing well" and fit our business model?

    I have absolutely no clue about Berwyn's model, but it is interesting to look over (at a village that has a step lower than Riverside on the image/socio-economic rank) and see the lower property prices(ergo lower property tax) and yet they seem to be able to have better than average parks, fire, police and their business district is evolving. All in ways that we wish we were doing... How does that balance sheet work?

    Posted Sunday Oct 11, 2009 14:11 #

33. spatny
    Member

    Well obviously Berwyn has a substantial and established commercial district paying taxes, and of course it is a much larger population. Probably we will have to look at some "combined services" ideas like fire, police, rec, etc. going forward, and while that has been explored I don't know how seriously. There has been a lot of tax income going into the schools here, and that's good, but when the surplus levels climb as they have for District 96 and the Village - which I think gets just 16% of the tax bill has to go begging, it is out of whack to say the least. One might think that Dist. 96 could step up and "adopt" some of the burden like the crossing guards, perhaps pay for one police officer to admin that, maybe chip in on some of the hardware that is required like another ambulance or a squad car, or maybe the $106K (or more) that goes into the Rec department support. The kids are the biggest users of that program, I think, so since the residents paid the money in it wouldn't be a big stretch to think that if they have a surplus of $(mil plus (climbing toward $12mil I heard projected) it hardly makes sense to deny using that money sitting in surplus toward those ends. Of course, there are probably myriad reasons for not doing that, but I think when they are paying upwards of $300K for a leader it might be worthwhile to ask anyway. If Dist. 96 picked up $500K of these costs a year for three years their projected surplus would still be climbing and it would be a great help to the Village. Any legal eagles no any way to do that? If we "follow the money" that is where it is at - not in filling a couple of our storefronts with businesses that may or may not pay sales tax. I'm not advocating taking something away, just reallocating it while our traditional revenue streams are deteriorating. Just an idea...

    Posted Sunday Oct 11, 2009 15:23 #

34. mr
    Member

    Just remember, property taxes get deducted from the federal income tax, but things like vehicle stickers don't.

    Posted Sunday Oct 11, 2009 18:02 #

35. mrt
    Member

    this just in , from London...

    Recession-hit govt to sell off state assets: PM
    Buzz up!10 votes Send
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    Delicious Digg Facebook Fark Newsvine Reddit StumbleUpon Technorati Twitter Yahoo! Bookmarks .Print .. AFP/Pool/File – The government will sell off a raft of state assets to help reduce its debt, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, … .2 hrs 25 mins ago
    LONDON (AFP) – The British government will sell off a raft of state assets to help reduce its debt, Prime Minister Gordon Brown was to announce Monday.
    ...

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091012/wl_uk_afp/britainpoliticseconomy_20091012000443

    Posted Sunday Oct 11, 2009 21:29 #

36. ChrisHajer
    Member

    Interesting news item from the Suburban Life:
    http://is.gd/4g0XV

    "Three more departments met with the Berwyn Budget Committee last week, with all three missing the 10 percent operating budget reduction requested by the panel."

    The shortfall in Riverside is about the same; 10% ($890K of $8M):
    http://is.gd/4g1fc

    The Berwyn annual budget is closer to $45M though:
    http://www.berwyn-il.gov/pdf/Clerk/Proposed_2009_Budget-FINAL.pdf

    Posted Monday Oct 12, 2009 18:19 #

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