In continued efforts to control spending and get a better handle on finances, City of Carmi officials for the first time in as long as anyone in attendance at the council meeting could recall, the budget was prepared in house. It was presented as part of a public hearing prior to the Tuesday night council gathering. While the tentative budget doesn’t show estimated revenues across the board including property taxes, it does give some insight into expenses and adjustments departments are expected to eliminate waste. For instance, general government salaries are expected to jump $21,034, but contractual services are expected to drop by more than $55,000. The big drop for 2026 versus 2025 on the general government side is in grant expenses which are expected to fall by more than $528,000. Total appropriations for the 2026 calendar year came in at more than $22.3 million. We also know that TIF District fund balances total more than $1.1 million in cash on hand as of January 1st with more than $925,000 of that in TIF I. City Clerk Cynthia Attebury, Economic Development Director Holly Healy, City Supervisor Brad Attebury, Mayor Bill Stendeback, Finance Committee Chair and Alderperson Lacey Bradshaw, and City Attorney Greg Stewart were all mentioned as having a role in putting the document together. Council is expected to vote on the budget at an upcoming meeting.
The other topic that garnered attention wasn’t on the agenda but came up in the mayor’s report. Over the weekend, there were at least a few social media posts made concerning light and water bills. We first told you about some expected discrepancies after the February 17th council meeting. Read more at Electric Cost Adjustment Goes Down; Carmi Residents Should Notice on March Bill – WRUL-FM
A better picture of what some of those discrepancies look like is coming into view with social media reports ranging from $3,000 shortages to at least one that showed arrears of more than $26,000. Those appear to be extremes, but nonetheless issues with an estimated 200 homeowners exist prompting Mayor Stendeback to address the topic Tuesday.
Obviously, we’ve had some issues in our budget billing. I can’t finger point because I don’t know who to point the finger at…don’t want to anyway. We think…we’ve had discussions with our city attorney Greg, with our accountants at Botsch and Associates, amongst ourselves. We are formulating a plan to deal with this. It’s not set in stone yet so I don’t really want to talk about it but the idea is to take this situation and be as…whatever it takes to get it solved and hopefully in a manner where we can come to the agreement we’re not being too harsh. Because we’re not going to be very harsh with this. I feel like leniency is a word we can use in this situation. We understand the hardship it might cause some people. So we’re formulating a plan to alleviate as much of that as possible.
The mayor asked for patience from affected residents and said the office is already fixing the internal part of the problem.
The March 17th City Council meeting will start at 5pm.