During a round table meeting hosted by the City of Aurora today featuring Mayors from across the State of Illinois, Joliet Mayor Bob O’Dekirk announced the City of Joliet has lost up to 70% of its annual operations revenue since COVID-19 began.
“Our annual budget is about 280 million dollars a year in Joliet. Right now we’re estimating we’ve lost about 70% of those revenues.” Mayor O’Dekirk announced, shocking other Mayors in attendance of the group video session hosted via Zoom on Facebook Live.
The announcement comes following a special budget meeting held by City officials last Tuesday. The City Manager and Finance Director laid out those loss projections for Joliet officials.
“With the Riverboats alone, we’re losing about $300,000 a week,” said Mayor O’Dekirk. “I think seniors are the big clientele, and the proximity, I think it’s a long time before those are going to be open. Or, if they are reopened, they operate anywhere near the way they were operated before.”
Mayor O’Dekirk says the City has a healthy reserve with a significant amount of assists to borrow against.
“We’re going to have a better idea a couple months from now when we see what revenues aren’t coming in,” Mayor O’Dekirk said. “You can’t cut your way out of that. We’re tightening our belt, we went back to Department heads, but those numbers just can’t be replaced. The numbers have to come in.”
Joliet’s Mayor says it’s hard to say where the City will come out from all of this, or how long it will take. “If things don’t’ change we figure we can stay viable until September, October,” Mayor O’Dekirk added.
You can watch the full roundtable discussion for yourself on the City of Aurora’s Facebook page now.
