STEELEVILLE (UPI) — Mayor Gerald Zacheis says it's surprising what bargains you can find if you go shopping with about $500,000 in cash.

Steeleville, a Randolph County town of 2,500 some 60 miles southeast of St. Louis, has come up with a new civic center.

Zacheis said paying cash for the project gave the town a $1 million building for about $600,000. The 46-year-old mayor applied a few business methods in the project, and townspeople chipped in the rest.

Zacheis said the city had about $500,000 in cash reserves built up from sales tax receipts, a 3 percent utility tax and profits from operation of its water and sewer works. The funds were invested in money market certificates, some of which brought 14 percent interest.

The town carefully shopped the bid possibilities and picked a time last summer when builders were eager for jobs, the mayor said.

Instead of letting the contract to a general contractor, the city got separate bids for demolition of the old community center on the site and for heating, plumbing, electrical and other types of work.

'When you have a general contractor, they add 20 percent onto the bids of the subcontractors," said Zacheis.

"And we tied the civic center project in with some street work so we could use 300 truckloads of dirt for fill-in leveling the site, instead of having to buy it," said Zacheis.

In his 12th year as mayor, Zacheis, who is in the farm equipment business, said he just enlarged on some business methods and lessons learned in 1976, when he built an 11,000-square-foot building for his business.

"And we saved money by not borrowing any," said Zacheis. "Even if we had borrowed $1, it would have cost us $10,000 in fees."

The new civic center was built to replace a 109-year-old civic center — a one-time school — after the town board learned it would cost $14,000 to repair the old building's roof.

The civic center houses the police and fire departments, clerk's and mayor's offices, a board meeting room, town library, and a 2,500 square foot community room that also serves as a nutrition center for senior citizens.

The town sold the old City Mall to a California comic book distributing firm which will bring about 10 new jobs to the town, Zacheis said.

When the building neared completion and the town needed $40,000 to equip and decorate it, citizens opened their wallets and donated their labor to complete the job, Zacheis said.

"We adopted a city flag in 1973 and I dreamed up a new city logo," said Zacheis. The city emblem decorates a wall of the new civic center.

It features a millwheel, green fields, blue sky, a yellow road and wheat field and two dates — 1806 when miller John Steele, the community's namesake, settled in the area, and 1888 when the town was chartered.

Page 20 / Illinois Municipal Review / May 1983