Mt. Zion Village Board talks budget, possible projects

By BLAKE FAITH
Staff Writer

The Mt. Zion Village Board met on November 15 and discussed the 2022 budget and approved the abolition of the Mt. Zion K.I.C.K. fund.

The 2022 budget was presented by Mt. Zion Village Administrator Julie Miller. The general fund beginning balance is $2.4 million. The funds are being dispersed between different departments on different expenditures.

The administrative department project is a crack seal and restripe the parking lot in front of the Mt. Zion Convention Center.

For the police department the focus will be on equipment such as body cameras and all new radios and associated equipment. The amount for that is estimated at $97,000. The police department is going to skip out on purchasing a new squad car this year. The staffing for the police department Cher let has one opening.

For the street department, there will be grant funds after the balance of the comacaat project will be used on the east side sanitary relief project. For parks and recreation, the plan is to get a utility vehicle for Fletcher Park and two commercial grade push mowers that is estimated at $22,000.

For the Convention Center, it will be to transfer out a bond payment of $95,000 (mortgage). The payment is two of 15.

The reasoning behind the abolition of the K.I.C.K. fund is that it has not had any donations or expenses in the past few years and is no longer part of the curriculum used by the Mt. Zion School Resource Officer.

The K.I.C.K fund is made up of donations, a portion of which were collected through the ending of the Police Auxiliary Fund and the Police Explorer Fund in 2015. The current balance of the fund is $3,678.99 and it will be transferred to the Drug Fund.

Other actions the Village Board did were

-Approved an ordinance to a TIF agreement between the Village of Mt. Zion and Lewis Property Development, LLC.

-Heard a presentation of the 2022-2026 Capital Improvement Plan.

The next Mt. Zion Village Board meeting will be held on December 20 at 5:15 p.m.