McHenry Times

The Woodstock City Council shed light on what will be discussed at its upcoming budget workshops.

The city typically holds two workshop meetings to go over the annual budget with the first focused on capital improvements and construction plans, and the second focused on the operating budget.

“I will state that as part of the budget process, of course, there's concerns that we may enter into a recession in the upcoming year,” city manager Roscoe Stelford III said at the Dec. 6 council meeting. “We have several economically driven revenue sources that if we were to enter into a recession, could be impacted. So we will be taking that into account, too, as we pull together the city's budget.”

Stelford did offer hope, despite these concerns, stating that the city did have sufficient fund reserves. 

“But we do need to put the money back later on when we get past that storm,” he said. “So we were prepared for the next storm. So it's a careful balancing act because you don't know how long the recession is going to last. So you kind of want to start making changes. But again, there's no guarantee it will happen.”

The city council expects its capital improvement plan workshop to be a little longer this year because it has some challenges ahead of it as water and sewer infrastructure requirements will be costly for the city—around $3 million. It also has a much bigger project with Route 47 than it initially expected.

The council will have a preliminary discussion on the operating budget just to see if it wants to add, eliminate, or drastically change any of the programs, and then the main meeting to shore up all of the funds and details. The budget will be delivered to the council at the second meeting in March, and then it will get a second read and a public hearing in April before it is finalized.

The dates for the budget workshops are yet to be determined.