The Finance and Personnel Committee of the City of Rockford met on Monday, March 23, 2026, at 5:30 PM. The meeting covered financial updates, a change order for the Elks Club demolition, approval of vouchers, an intergovernmental agreement, and nine resolutions for infrastructure and service contracts. All votes were taken and passed unanimously.
Welcome to the finance and personnel committee meeting held tonight, Monday, March 23rd, 2026. Sir Clerk, you please take order. Here. Thank you. Our first item is a financial discussion on February of 2026. Ms. Haggerty. Yes, sir. Welcome. Thank you. So it is very early in the fiscal year, so difficult to draw any conclusions based on the information we have so far. But as you can see here, income tax slightly over budget and replacement tax under budget year to date. Just really due to timing. So we would expect as the year progresses that those will catch up. After uh two disbursements of MFT, we're about three percent over budget. Year to date, no CAP sales tax received yet. And in the redevelopment fund, uh we're showing slightly under budget year to date and all uh revenue sources. So happy to answer any specific questions anyone has. Alden Salgato. Yeah, just real quick. Um I know that you said that it it could be timing, uh, but I saw the the hotel uh tax um 10.8 percent. Um is that pretty standard or we're lagging uh will we catch up? Yeah, so we collect the uh we collect all of the um local sales taxes here in finance, so we don't have the same delay as the statewide revenues. Um so there's I know that we have a couple of hotels that are a little bit behind in remittance, and you know, we go through our normal collection process in order to get um those hotels into compliance. Um I would anticipate that there will be some catch up here. Um hopefully that it you know, right now after two months we're at 19% under budget. You know, our hope is that trend does not continue. Thank you. Any other questions? Yes, it's easy. All right, thank you so much. Moving on on item two is information only, it relates to a change word at the Elks Club due to um uh removal of the stained glass windows, additional asbestos abatement uh and sidewalk replacement costs. Um they were most of these were previously unknown conditions and were required to address safety concerns and restore safe pedestrian access. Um, you've got me to vote on it. Alden Salgato. Thank you, Chairman, for allowing me to speak again. Um just quick question. Um, I know these are public safety uh concerns that were unforeseen. We we didn't know at the time, um, but just want to get uh a process when it comes to these change orders because it is 34 percent increase um from the 233108 that we agreed. I didn't see of um up to say three hundred thousand, four hundred thousand. Um just want to get clarity on that because you know uh from my perspective, you know, it is about you know, here give or take about 70 to 75,000 dollars uh additional cost that we are incurring, and I understand that it's a public safety sidewalk replacement and so forth, but just want to understand that that process. Um, you know, because I I don't know. I just I just feel that it's quite significant from that perspective, and you know, it would have been great to at least say up to 400,000. And I understand that there's a lot of unforeseen things going on, but uh to secure the facility and and to the tear down after the tear down. So just wanted to get some clarity on that process. Okay, go ahead. Yeah. Um so anything under 25,000, we we assume that we could the um sorry the requirements to come back to council when it's over 25,000 more. Um the first two change orders were done beforehand. This last one just came in.