City of Barry passes Motor Fuel Tax resolution and budget
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By DAVID CAMPHOUSE
At its recent regular December council meeting, the City of Barry passed its annual Motor Fuel Tax (MFT) resolution and budget.
MFT revenue is used by the city to perform maintenance and improvements on city streets.
According to Barry City Administrator Jeff Hogge, this year’s MFT budget of $158,437 is larger than normal, allowing the city to tackle some large road and street improvement projects.
“It’s up a little this year,” Hogge said. “We had some funds left that we just hadn’t used, so we’re going to try and hit a fair amount next summer – as far as tar and chipping our roads.”
Hogge added that the road work to be undertaken with the MFT money will include significant sections of Barry’s most used thoroughfares.
“We’re going to be hitting some of our major roads like Decatur and Mortimer,” Hogge said. “We’ll be doing some pretty good stretches.”
Also passed at the December council meeting was a Highway Authority Agreement with the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to perform a final soil test to make sure that the soil around the former gas station at the corner of Illinois Route 106 and Rodgers Street is free of petrochemicals or other pollutants. The test must be performed before the property can be redeveloped.
“The agreement just says that there needs to be a final EPA test on it to make sure there’s no gas or oil in the ground before they turn it loose,” Hogge said. “We just had to sign an agreement saying that we’ll wait until that’s done before anything is done with the property.”
According to Hogge, the testing is paid for by the IEPA, but the exact timeline for the test is unknown.
“The money to pay for it comes out of an Illinois fund,” Hogge said. “It could still be six or more months out before it gets done.”
It was previously reported that the owners of Pittsfield’s Brewed Coffee House & Eatery had expressed interest in the property for a drive-up location of Brewed.
The property is currently owned by County Board member Mark Sprague.
The Barry City Council went on to renew the city’s insurance policies that cover city-owned properties as well as the city’s workers compensation.
Hogge said that the insurance that covers city-owned properties was renewed at an annual rate of $39,003.
The workers compensation insurance was renewed at a rate of $19,326.
Also passed by the council was an employee paid leave ordinance that states that the City of Barry is in compliance with the new state law regulating paid leave rules for all employees in the state.
Among other stipulations for employers, the new state legislation on paid time off provides that paid leave shall accrue at the rate of one hour for every 40 hours worked. Employees will be paid their full wage while on leave and tipped workers will be paid the minimum wage in their respective locale. In addition, an employer cannot require an employee to find their replacement for the leave.
“The paid leave ordinance was just something we had to pass,” Hogge said. “It was a pretty boilerplate thing, stating that we are in compliance with the Illinois Paid leave Act.”
“Our policies for employee leave already more than satisfied the new rules.”
The city also purchased two used trucks – a 2016 Chevy 3500 with a plow and spreader and a 2011 Ford F350 with a plow for $37,750 and $37,995 respectively.
Hogge indicated that the city purchased the trucks so that city employees could plow snow and perform work duties without needing to attain a commercial drivers license.
“This way, all of our workers won’t need a CDL,” Hogge said. “We’ll still keep one bigger truck with a plow, though.”
Finally, the Barry Council approved the annual contract with Pike County Animal Control for $5,200.
“That’s the amount we’ve been paying,” Hogge said. “The new gals that are working for animal control are doing a very good job I think.”
