City engineer says Rebuild Illinois MFT paperwork will reauthorize road spending; no new funds requested

Calumet City’s engineer told the council the state is closing a Rebuild Illinois motor fuel tax (MFT) program and asked the city to complete paperwork reauthorizing previously designated MFT spending into the Rebuild Illinois MFT account for specific road projects.

That matters because the changes are administrative: the engineer said no additional money is being spent beyond allocations already made by the state legislature under the Rebuild Illinois program.

City Engineer Ken Chastain told the council that the funding was designated by the Illinois General Assembly in 2020 for Rebuild Illinois and that the city used those funds for projects including Pulaski Road resurfacing, Buffalo Avenue work and a project on 150 Seventh Street in the Wilson neighborhood. Chastain said, “The state is now closing the program and they asked us to make sure we have a piece of paperwork that reauthorizes the spending of that money from the regular MFT accounts into the Rebuild Illinois MFT account. So we've worked with the treasurer's office to make sure we can do that paperwork correctly.”

Council discussion did not identify additional local expenditures for these projects; Chastain said the spending was based on allocations the state already made. Alderman Tillman moved to approve the resolutions relating to those MFT transactions (items 9-1 through 9-8) and the council approved them by roll call.

Because the action is a paperwork reauthorization tied to state-designated funds, it does not change the scope or cost of the listed projects as presented at the meeting. The city will proceed with the administrative filing required by the state to close out the Rebuild Illinois MFT program.