§ 8-2-6

Budget document; availability; hearing; limitations on appropriations. (a) The corporate authorities in municipalities specified in Section 8-2-1 shall make the budget document as submitted by the mayor conveniently available to public inspection for at least 10 days before the passage of the annual appropriation ordinance, by publication in the journal of the proceedings of the corporate authorities or in another form prescribed by the corporate authorities. (b) Not less than one week after the publication of the budget document, and before final action on the appropriation ordinance, the corporate authorities shall hold at least one public hearing on the budget document. Notice of this hearing shall be given by publication in a newspaper having a general circulation in the municipality at least one week before the time of the hearing. After the public hearing and before final action is taken on the appropriation ordinance, the corporate authorities may revise, alter, increase, or decrease the items contained in the budget document. Upon completion of its action on the budget document, the corporate authorities shall enact the budget document as so revised as the annual appropriation ordinance. (c) All of the requirements pertaining to the form and substance of the budget document, including limitations, as prescribed in Sections 8-2-1 through 8-2-8, shall be applicable to the appropriation ordinance. Detailed schedules supporting the appropriation ordinance shall be attached to the ordinance and shall be published in the official record of the municipalities simultaneously with the appropriation ordinance, but shall not be considered as an official part of the ordinance. (d) The aggregate amount finally appropriated by the appropriation ordinance, including any subsequent amendment of the ordinance, from any fund or for any purpose (including amounts appropriated for judgments and all other unpaid liabilities and all other purposes for which the corporate authorities are by this Section or otherwise by law required to appropriate) shall not exceed the aggregate amount available in that fund or for that purpose as shown by the estimates of the available assets thereof at the beginning of the fiscal year for which appropriations are made and of taxes and other current revenue set forth in the budget document as submitted to the corporate authorities or as revised by the budget director. If the appropriations from any fund as set forth in the appropriation ordinance as finally adopted exceed in the aggregate the maximum amount that the corporate authorities are authorized by this Section to appropriate from the fund, all appropriations made from that fund by the appropriation ordinance are void. In this latter event, the several amounts appropriated for current operation and maintenance expense in the appropriation ordinance of the last preceding fiscal year shall be deemed to be appropriated for the fiscal year for which the void appropriations were made for the objects and purposes, respectively, as specified in the last preceding appropriation ordinance. The several amounts so deemed to be appropriated shall constitute lawful appropriations upon which taxes for the fiscal year for which the void appropriations were made may be levied under Section 8-3-1. (e) The corporate authorities may amend the annual appropriation ordinance at their next regular meeting occurring not less than 5 days after the passage of the ordinance, in the same manner as other ordinances. If any item of appropriation contained in the appropriation ordinance is vetoed by the mayor, with a recommendation for a change in that item, the adoption of the recommendation by a yea and nay vote shall be regarded as the equivalent of an amendment of the annual appropriation ordinance with the same effect as if an amendatory ordinance were duly passed. The appropriation ordinance, as originally passed or as subsequently amended, also may be amended at any regular or special meeting of the corporate authorities held not more than 15 days after the first regular meeting of the corporate authorities occurring not less than 5 days after the passage of the ordinance, by repealing or reducing the amount of any item of appropriation contained in the ordinance.

Legislative History

(Source: P.A. 87-1119.)