County Eyes $40,000 in Coal Funds for Two Portable Message Signs

Montgomery County Board Roads & Bridges Committee Meeting | July 8, 2026

Article Summary: County Engineer Cody Greenwood and EMA/EPA/911 Director Dan Hough told the Montgomery County Board Roads & Bridges Committee on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, that they plan to make an FY2027 budget request for $40,000 from Fund 375 to buy two portable changeable message signs. No motion was made and no vote was taken.

Portable Message Signs Key Points:

• The plan is to request $40,000 from Fund 375, the county’s coal royalty fund, in the FY2027 budget.
• Greenwood said the signs are effective in controlling traffic during construction and emergency events, and that messages can be changed remotely.
• Hough said his department requested remote signs from the state during the Fillmore cattle event, but they took a long time to arrive and could only be used on state right-of-way.
• The signs would also be useful to the Sheriff’s Office, according to the minutes.

MONTGOMERY COUNTY — When cattle got loose in Fillmore, Montgomery County asked the state for message boards. They took a long time to come, and when they came, they could not leave the state’s own right-of-way.

That experience turned up on Wednesday morning as an argument for the county buying its own.

County Engineer Cody Greenwood and EMA/EPA/911 Director Dan Hough presented a plan to the Roads & Bridges Committee on Wednesday, July 8, 2026, to make an FY2027 budget request for $40,000 from Fund 375 for two portable changeable message signs.

Greenwood said the signs are effective in controlling traffic during construction and emergency events, and messages can be changed remotely. Hough said his department requested remote signs from the state during the Fillmore cattle event, but they took a long time to arrive and could only be used on state right-of-way. The signs would also be useful to the Sheriff’s Office, the minutes state, attributing the point to neither man.

The right-of-way limitation is the whole of the argument in one clause. A state-owned sign on a state highway cannot be moved onto a county road, and a county emergency does not confine itself to state routes.

For readers who did not follow the earlier account: Hough reported to the County Board Coordinating Committee on June 25, 2026, that his department had handled an issue in Fillmore during which cattle were running at large, and that message boards were borrowed from the Illinois Department of Transportation during the incident.

What the Handouts Show, and Do Not

The committee’s handouts include a manufacturer’s brochure for a mid-size, full-matrix, trailer-mounted portable changeable message sign — a solar-powered unit whose messages can be changed at the sign, or remotely from a phone, tablet or computer, and which the brochure lists as suited to highway construction, road construction, city and county use, and law enforcement.

The county’s minutes do not name a manufacturer, a model, or a vendor. The brochure sits in the packet next to the item; nothing in the record says it is what the county would buy, and this newspaper does not assume it.

Nor does the brochure carry a price. How the $40,000 figure was arrived at, what it covers beyond the two signs, and whether it is an estimate or a quote are not recorded anywhere in the county’s paperwork.

Where the Money Would Come From, and When

Fund 375 is the county’s coal fund, built from a 2 percent royalty on coal mine royalties. Its stated departmental scope has been Buildings & Grounds, the sheriff’s office, and EMA/EPA/911 — and a request routed through the county engineer and the emergency management director, for equipment the sheriff would also use, sits squarely inside it.

Nothing has been requested yet. The item is a plan to make a request in a budget that has not been written, for a fiscal year that has not begun. The county’s FY2027 budget hearings are expected in August.

No motion was made. The item was titled “Portable Changeable Message Signs Update/Approval,” and the committee took no action.