South Beloit council approves $517,822.36 in claims, hears final Rock Road pay application update

The South Beloit City Council approved claims totaling $517,822.36 at its Jan. 21 meeting; staff highlighted a roughly $122,000 payment tied to finalizing the Rock Road Motor Fuel Tax project.

Brandon, a staff or project representative who spoke at the meeting, described unanticipated site conditions that raised the contractor’s mobilization and undercut costs. He said additional base repairs, curb and gutter work and coordination with other projects (including an emergency sewer on Forest Park) added roughly $35,000–$40,000 to the contract; overall, he said the project closed about $9,000 under the original contract amount despite the extras. “We had some hiccups along the way, but we felt that Rock Road substantially performed its job pretty well,” Brandon said.

Public works staff described coordination challenges with Illinois American Water, which sometimes digs into recently paved roads; staff said they have asked the utility to mirror the city’s higher pavement repair standards and to crack-seal patches so frozen water will not accelerate deterioration. Staff also said they will continue to require permits and follow up with inspections and potential rework if the patches settle.

Don presented a quarterly finance report. He said the general fund finished the year approximately $1,000,000 favorable on a cash basis, while revenues were down about $700,000 and expenditures were down about $1,007,000. The sewer fund showed an operating loss of roughly $565,000, with cash balances falling by about $2,000,000 over the year largely because of capital project cash outlays and debt-service timing; staff attributed part of the cash fluctuation to timing between loan disbursements and contractor payments. Don also noted January state-shared revenues were slightly lower than the previous year and flagged an unexplained drop in use tax receipts for further review.

Councilors asked about timing for new revenues tied to recently opened facilities; staff said revenue from the new facility (referred to in the meeting as Cloudhaven) is expected to show up in March receipts.