Again this year, no one showed up for a public hearing on the largest local government budget in Woodstock and the biggest spender of property tax revenue. The 2022-23 budget of $118.3 million for Woodstock School District 200 was approved last week by the Board of Education after a public hearing in which no one […]
Nobody from the public showed up last week to comment as the Woodstock School District 200 Board of Education approved a $115.7 million budget for the 2021-22 school year. What a difference 20 years make. The district’s budget was $45 million for the 2001-02 school year, when student enrollment was 5,639 students. Enrollment is now […]
“How long can we continue to do this?” Mayor Brian Sager asked rhetorically during a budget workshop of the Woodstock City Council. He was talking about the council’s decade-long practice of holding the line on the city’s property tax levy, forgoing the state-allowed maximum levy since 2010. That “tax savings,” Sager said, totals $13.4 million […]
When the Board of Trustees approved a 2020-21 fiscal year budget last week, it appropriated an additional $150,000 for an “administrative position” at the WFRD, likely a deputy chief, a position eliminated in recent years as finances got tight. Thanks to an April 2019 voter referendum that approved a 20 percent increase in the district’s […]
Income and spending will jump about 25 percent in the 2020-21 Woodstock city budget – both inflated by the $9 million in major street improvements being made this year.The City Council was expected Tuesday night to pass the budget of about $48 million for the fiscal year that begins May 1.In a budget workshop April […]
Woodstock School District 200’s new budget calls for small decreases over last year in revenues and expenditures, but state funding could go up slightly once a new formula kicks in. District 200 will spend $94.65 million in the 2017-18 fiscal year, a drop from the previous year’s budget of $95.15 million. Revenues will total $94.24 […]
Woodstock residents will pay more for water after the City Council approved a new budget that includes a 3 percent hike in water and sewer rates. The Fiscal Year 2017-18 budget passed 6-1 April 18, with outgoing Councilman RB Thompson the only dissenter. The new water rates, which are estimated to add about $15 annually […]
The city of Woodstock will have slightly lower budgeted expenditures and slightly higher revenues in the next fiscal year if the City Council approves the budget presented to them March 21. In all, the proposed budget calls for the city to spend $32.04 million in the 2017-18 fiscal year, which begins May 1. In 2016-17, […]
Larry Lough is editor of The Independent and reports local news.
Janet Dovidio has been a freelance correspondent for The Independent for eight years.
Susan W. Murray wrote for The Independent, covering various beats, from 2005 to 2008.
Tricia Carzoli is a freelance writer and photographer that on community news.
