Trustees have agreed to cut staff, close the Village Hall on weekends and install a new telephone system to help reduce a projected $364,000 budget deficit.
The cuts are an effort to keep Willowbrook in the black this year, officials said. Trustees already have imposed a 3 percent utility tax and a $5 increase in the vehicle licensing fee, and have slashed funding for a planned $27,000 storm sewer project along Clarendon Hills Road to trim costs and raise funds.
”This has been very difficult, but I think we have a plan everyone can live with,” said Village President Eugene Noose.
Willowbrook`s deficit-caused by sluggish sales and lower state income tax revenue-has been the focus of much review. Trustees had cut 20 percent in expenditures earlier this year, and because the village is one of the few in the state without a real estate tax, they cannot impose one under the 5 percent property tax cap.
A proposal to spend $10,000 to catch would-be vehicle license scofflaws was rejected, as was a plan to raise taxes on restaurant sales.
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But the staff cuts, which will eliminate one full-time and one part-time secretary position should save thousands of dollars, said Village
administrator Bernard Oglietti. The installation of a $15,000 voice-mail phone system will help free the village`s receptionist to assume some of the extra secretarial duties, Oglietti said.