Tax Levy, budget, and health insurance premiums on council docket

CHRISTY JANKOWSKI, Commercial-News, Danville, Ill.Commercial-News

DANVILLE — As health insurance renewals come in, city employees were looking at an 18.5% increase, but city officials were told last week they were able to lower that.

Human Resources and Risk Manger, Kathy Courson was present at last week’s committee meeting to answer questions.

The city is set to vote on a 6.8% increase with a $6,000 health reimbursement account to be used to cover the $7,500 out of pocket deductible for health insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield.

“So there are some people who will never end up paying anything out of their pocket,” Courson said. “Because they’re not big users of the insurance, or because they’re not going to exceed more than $6,000 in medical for the year.”

Alderman Tricia Teague asked, “So the health reimbursement account, the $6,000, the city is paying that?”

Courson said yes, the, “company will actually monitor it and require people to actually, periodically, if it exceeds a certain amount, provide proof of what they were paying so we can ensure that what they’re paying for is this year’s stuff as well as that is something medical cannot be used at any place like Meijer or Walmart to buy a TV.”

Alderman Doug Aherns said about the deal, “it seems like a good opportunity to try. You never know until you try it. But, certainly we’ve looked at these and here and others, and being able to put the six grand up front.”

Mayor Rickey Williams Jr. added, “alderman, the thing that I love about this as well, in addition to what you said, is that if someone doesn’t spend the entire $6,000, it comes back to the city as well.”

The city will also be reviewing the 2025 tax levy and the 2026 budget during closed session on Tuesday.

There was much discussion on how casino funds should be used.

Ahrens noted a large increase in EAV (equalized access value).

“To go from $304,000,021 to 442 million in just a few years is pretty amazing,’’ said Ahrens about the EAV increases during the COVID pandemic. “So it certainly helped our situation.’’

Library funding cuts have been a big debate with council. Aherns has spoken out numerous times against cutting their funds, especially with a new director.

“Welcome to Danville, we just cut you from what your predecessors had to work with,’’ Ahrens said. “My preference would be to see them stay at a funding level of about 2.1 million through the tax levy, which is less than they received each of the last two years.”

Another heavily discussed topic was the use of casino fund for pensions.

“I would like to have a casino community benefit fund, or whatever the administration determines is an appropriate title, so that everyone will always be able to see where every penny of the casino money went,’’ Ahrens said. “In particular, the casino is projected to bring in about $2.26 million in revenue that is going into the general fund.”

“Why don’t we just tell everybody we’re using the casino money on pensions? I just don’t think that’s the most prudent financial way for a community our size to be funding our pensions.”

Williams addressed Aherns questions about the pension.

“As far as our pension payments go, we were in a hole.” he said. “One of their primary concerns for the city was that we were not properly funding our pensions, and so we took it upon ourselves to take that charge seriously and to make sure that we are good stewards of taxpayer dollars.”

Williams said at this point they have to be 90% funded by 2040 according to state statute.

“If we stay on the path that we’re funded, we will be 100% funded before that time,” Williams said. “If we can just hold the course for the next eight to 10 years, then the city of Danville will have an additional $8 to 10 million a year that we can use for whatever we would possibly need.”

In other news, the council is set to approve a 5-year-agreement with Motorola Solutions for 15 body worn cameras for the Danville Police Department, and squad video cameras, docking stations with unlimited cloud storage.

Also, Potterfest is coming to downtown Danville this Friday.

“This is one of our biggest events of the year, and all of our downtown businesses get involved.” Rhenna Ollis said. “So we’re pretty excited for this one, and Lindsey (Franz) has been working really hard on it and has some cool new, fun ideas that I think a lot of the community will enjoy.”