Monticello previews 2025 appropriation ordinance; public hearing set for March 24

City staff briefed the Monticello City Council on the draft 2025 appropriation ordinance and scheduled a public hearing for the council meeting on March 24. The ordinance must be passed in the city’s first fiscal quarter and provides the city’s legal spending authority for the year.

Staff said the appropriation ordinance increases all revenues and expenditures by about 10 percent compared with the adopted 2025 budget as a buffer for unanticipated changes. The draft contains two items beyond the adopted budget: a $500,000 appropriation for the police pension fund (consisting of $250,000 for the prior year that was not physically transferred plus $250,000 for the current year) and $100,000 for preliminary engineering for a West Washington Street streetscape project from Charter Street to Market Street. Staff said the $125,000 MFT street maintenance allocation remains the programmed expenditure for MFT work; the appropriation includes additional MFT authority when submitting required state forms to cover possible overruns but does not signal intent to spend beyond the $125,000 budgeted amount.

The city will publish the required public hearing notices on March 12 and March 19 in the Piatt County Journal‑Republican and consider the appropriation ordinance at the March 24 meeting. Staff noted a typographical error in one line of the draft appropriation schedule that will be corrected before the hearing.