North Cook News

At the April 6 village board meeting, officials from Hanover Park discussed their ideas and methods for water-bill relief efforts for their residents. 

Trustee Herb Porter brought up the discussion while they were approving a payment to the Park District for the aquatic center, wanting to know why they didn’t prioritize water reliefs funds.

 Later in the meeting, the village officials gave some background information, sharing that they had created a $2,500 trial fund account to provide relief to residents struggling to pay their water bills, and had their finance department work with other communities to develop a possible program and solution for the village in the long term.

"In discussions with the townships, they would really like us to send the individuals to them first because they're able to help the individual in other ways in addition to water assistance," said Juliana Maller, village manager of Hanover Park. "So they might need assistance through the food bank or they might need a child-care assistance or some other. They have many programs, and so they would like to help that individual as a whole first and then know that we would have additional funds to help them if for some reason they exhausted the aid from the township."

Lynda Chambers, the assistant finance director, said that in talking with the townships around them, Hanover Parks' water relief funds will be added to the list of assistance that low-income and struggling residents apply for from the townships throughout the year. If residents go through this process and are still in need of help, they will be referred back to the village which could provide an additional $100 a year to help them make payments. The village will start this supplementary program when water rate increases go into effect on May 1 and will adjust the amount in coming years, if need be, she said. 

The village also approved a payment of $61,760 to the Park District so that it can open the aquatic center to residents this summer. There was some discussion about this item as different numbers had been mentioned. Officials explained that the pool fill-up number this year was estimated a little over $90,000, but the park district’s budget could handle some of that cost and the village was only filling in its shortfall amount, which was less than previous years.