New Bremen council approves appropriations

NEW BREMEN — Councilors approved the 2021 appropriations Monday night at the New Bremen village council meeting.

At the Dec. 14 meeting, Fiscal Officer Amy Speelman told councilors that they were facing a reduced budget of 20% because of a decrease in income tax revenues.

Speelman announced Monday that the 2021 appropriations will be $19,429,032.72, which is a decrease from this year.

She mentioned some of the improvements the village plans on doing next year and the costs associated with the projects. The projects include: crack sealing at $50,000; diamond improvements at BremenFest Park for $41,000; an estimated $50,000 in pool repairs; grants for the bike bath and canal cleanup; the village’s land purchase of $1.5 million and some wastewater plant improvements.

“We’ll just have to evaluate throughout the year where the revenue is coming in at and if we need to adjust, up or down,” she said.

Also during the meeting, council approved the amended 2020 appropriations by emergency.

The final appropriations totaled $27,085,533.37, which was reduced by $837,000.  “This is just the normal end of year where I’m balancing

what I estimated our appropriations would be this year to what our revenues actually ended up being,” said Speelman. “I just have to make sure that our revenue exceeds our appropriations. Some accounts I have to decrease the appropriations. I’m reducing the appropriations by $837,000 and that puts me in balance in the funds.” In other business, council:

• Heard the financial report from councilman Jacob Larger. December expenses were $1,856,361.73 and November receipts were $1,331,838.42.

• Heard from Mayor Bob Parker during his report and he mentioned what the village was able to get accomplished this year.

“It seemed like an odd year from March on, it didn’t seem like we got a lot done but we did get a lot done,” said Parker. Projects he mentioned include completing the north electrical substation, completing the traffic signals downtown, updating the controls at the water plant, completing the wastewater aerator improvements, the street reconstruction of Franklin and Ash streets, the state Route 274 widening project at the entrance of the industrial park, replacing the heater at the swimming pool and removing the stoplight at Plum and Walnut streets.

• Heard an update from Village Administrator Brent Richter regarding the swimming pool. It’s been an ongoing project for the village to find the leak in the pool and they had Astro Pool Company out on Tuesday to locate the leaks. Astro was the company that installed it. Richter said that of the eight lines the company has checked so far, they found four lines that were leaking. He called the leaks “substantial” but added that the village will have American Leak Detection come in and determine where exactly the leaks are so the village won’t have to dig up the entire line.