Joliet Will Go Broke In Several Months: Finance Director

JOLIET, IL — Joliet's revenue sources are drying up — down 70 percent to 80 percent — amid the coronavirus outbreak that has forced several of the city's biggest employers to shut down, according to city Finance Director Jim Ghedotte.

Ghedotte gave his preliminary revenue projections at Tuesday night's Joliet City Council meeting. He implored the council to consider taking drastic measures as soon as possible.

He compared the city's plight to that of someone running out of toilet paper.

"If you wait until you run out of toilet paper, you're going to be out of toilet paper," Ghedotte said, drawing laughs from several council members at the meeting.

But Joliet's finances are not a laughing matter, he stressed.

Ghedotte said the city has already burned through more than $7 million since bars, sit-down restaurants and other nonessential businesses were forced to shut down because of the coronavirus outbreak. That includes Joliet's two longtime casinos: Harrah's and Hollywood.

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Combined, the two casinos typically generate $1.38 million per month in revenue for the city, Ghedotte noted. He said it's easy for him to forecast the city's upcoming revenue streams from the casinos. It's going to be zero.

"The casinos are closed," Ghedotte said.

The city generates about $80,000 a month from video poker machines. Right now, almost all the video poker machines are shut down, except for ones in a few of the truck stops, he said.

"I would expect that (revenue) to be close to zero also," Ghedotte said.

Ghedotte said that hotel and motel tax revenue for the city is also anticipated to be down between 70 percent and 80 percent.

"We used $7 million of cash above what we're receiving," he said at one point. "We're losing $7 million in 16 days. We need to get a handle on this now. We can't even wait a week to stop (the) spending."

Ghedotte said Joliet's loss in revenue from food and beverage taxes is also expected to be down significantly, because the only places that can remain open are ones that specialize in drive-thru, carryout and delivery options.

He also predicted that even if the coronavirus pandemic begins to subside in the coming days, the city's finances are "not going to get better in two weeks."

If things continue on their current course, Ghedotte said, "we're going to lose anywhere from $8 million to $10 million a month."

On the positive side, Joliet currently has about $70 million case reserves in the bank, he said. On the negative side, Joliet will run out of money later this year.

"My preliminary projection," Ghedotte told the council, "we will be out of money in October or November."

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