Burr Ridge leaders received good financial news at their Monday board meeting with the results of the town’s Fiscal Year 2023 audit, though police pension funding was down a bit due to investment market volatility not controlled by the town.
Once again, on the audit, the village performed well, outperforming projected fiscal health.
Matt Beran, an accountant with Lauterbach & Amen, the financial firm Burr Ridge uses for its audit, delivered the annual report. He said his audit reviewed financial controls as well as methods for tracking expenses, income and other routine financial matters and found no cause for concern.
“It was a very successful audit and we gave the village an unmodified opinion,” he said. This is the means the town’s financial controls keep within standard best practices.
“It’s another financially successful year for the village,” he said.
Beran said Burr Ridge brought in some $2.3 million extra in funds, putting the village in a secure financial position, coupled with the town’s internal auditing systems.
“We had a positive year in terms of the internal controls,” Beran said.
“And the village remains debt free,” Mayor Gary Grasso said.
“Yes,” Beran replied.
Village administrator Evan Walter then spoke briefly about police pensions and FY 2024 budget adjustments. The only spot of troubling news was the state of the police funding ratio or the amount of money the town invests in police pensions.
The town still invests enough money by state law, but it stumbled at 59 %, a far cry from last year’s funding. According to the numbers from April, the village’s assets — e.g., its investments used to fund the pension — grew only by $63,647 this year. The year prior, that growth was over $1 million, but Walter pointed out the village — like every other municipality in the state — is beholden to market whims.
In short, he said it’s been a tough year in the stock market.
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“Markets go up, markets go up,” Walter said. “Our net position went down.”
He also pointed out this was the first year the state controlled the local pension fund investments. A change in state law allows the state to pool all pension funds from towns across Illinois in hopes of creating more revenue for individual municipalities.
Trustee Joe Snyder asked if village leaders were aware of the change, and Walter said they were.
“We’ve known that (the change was coming) for a number of years and it was just a matter of time that we’d have to comply with it,” he said.
Grasso said the idea is that the state could make stronger investments by combining all pension investments for “better investing positions, who knows.”
“Hopefully it’ll be more predictable,” he said. “It’s supposed to be better.”
Finally, trustees got a report on the current (FY 2024) first quarter budget.
“We’re in a very good net position,” Walter said. He added the general fund is exceeding projected revenue thanks, in part, to strong sales and fuel taxes.
“The general sense of the village is, things are trending in the right direction,” Walter said.
The board took no action on the financial reports, but did approve some routine budget adjustments.
Jesse Wright is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.