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St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Lee Enterprises

Wednesday, March 12, 2008 9:17 PM CDT
Budget trimming won't reach Mattoon economic development, officials say

By HERB MEEKER, Staff Writer
hmeeker@jg-tc.com

MATTOON — A tight budget would only get tighter if the city cut back on its economic development efforts, local leaders said.

With $5.5 million in revenue generated by sale taxes, Mattoon city officials are still committed to funding commercial development projects in the city, like the new businesses along Broadway Avenue, and along its outskirts in the newly created development districts.

“The tax increment financing district work will continue with the Cross County Mall and others. And we will work with the developers of the I-57 east TIF, too, for a new hotel and conference center there. That stuff is not going to stop because of the budget,” said Mattoon City Attorney and Treasurer Preston Owen.

The problem is business activity is sorely needed with a recession expected to cut into sales tax receipts for municipalities across the country.

“We can already tell the revenue is not coming in like it did last year,” said Mattoon Public Works Director Dave Wortman. “We’re already in a pinch. The sales tax reflects what the growth will be in our revenues. The sales tax reacts more to the economy than property tax.”

An examination of city sales tax receipts shows monthly totals down in January, April, and May of 2007, compared to the same months in 2006. That amounts to a difference in those months of $32,877. However, the receipts from later in 2007 are ahead of the totals during the last months of 2006. The figures for the final quarter of 2007 are not yet available.

But city officials are concerned that sales tax receipts might not keep pace with the city’s needs.

“They are not rising at a high rate,” Owen said. “And our expenses in the general fund keep going up. It is not a crisis, not yet. But just look at the percentages.”

Another potential economic development project will not face cuts in the budget, either, Owen said.

“On FutureGen, the city of Mattoon has not spent a dime of local money. Coles Together and the state of Illinois provided the money there,” he said.

The city is working with Coles Together, state officials and federal lawmakers to try to reverse the Department of Energy’s decision to restructure the FutureGen plan. The new direction by the DOE killed federal funding of the plan that would have constructed the FutureGen power plant in Mattoon.

Contact Herb Meeker at hmeeker@jg-tc.com or 238-6869.

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Kevin Kilhoffer/Staff Photographer -- People enter the Broadway Grill along the 1400 block of Broadway Avenue in Mattoon during the lunch hour on Wednesday.