Marengo Kept Its State Road Salt Contract. The Price Rose 28.5%.

Marengo has its road salt lined up for this winter, and it will pay $94.52 a ton for it, 28.5% more than last winter. The state's salt bid came up empty this year for 260 locations across Illinois, including Harvard, Huntley and the City of McHenry. Marengo's did not.

If you did not know the city buys its salt through the state, you are in good company. We pulled the state's bid records and the city's council packets and bill lists back to 2023. Here is how it works and what it costs.

How Marengo Buys Its Salt

Illinois runs one big salt bid a year. The Department of Central Management Services, the state agency that runs it, collects orders each spring from cities, townships, school districts and state highway yards, then puts the whole list out to bid at once. Every location is its own line, and salt companies bid line by line.

Signing up is a commitment to buy. Marengo's order this year carries an 80% minimum, so the city must take at least 400 of the 500 tons it asked for. The salt is paid for out of the city's motor fuel tax fund, according to city bill lists.

The city has used the state pool for years. "The City has seen favorable pricing by bidding with the state," the public works director wrote in a March 2025 memo to the council. The memo listed the alternatives as bidding alone or joining another government's bid.

Joining takes council action. The state requires a certificate showing who is authorized to sign for the city, and the city's own purchasing policy sends purchases over $10,000 to the council, the same memo says. This spring the city administrator told the council in a memo that the certificate on file with the state was no longer valid, with the salt sign-up due by April 7 and no regular meeting until April 13. The council met in special session on April 6, with a new certificate as the only item, and approved it 8-0, according to the minutes.

Two Bidders Instead of Three

Bids were opened June 30. The state's award notice, dated July 28, lists two bidders, Morton Salt and Compass Minerals, splitting a contract worth about $72.5 million, and no unsuccessful bidders. For each of the six winters before this one, state records list three winners: Morton, Compass and Cargill.

The state described the gap in an emergency purchase filing dated August 24. "We usually have 3 major rock salt suppliers that submit quotes, but this year 1 of those suppliers chose not to submit a quote," it reads. The filing does not name the supplier. It says 260 of the 905 locations in the bid received no bid at all, and that the supply of rock salt "is and will be limited this year due to the harsh winter last season that spread from the Midwest all the way to the east coast."

The state offered the locations left out a choice, according to its July 28 memo to them: buy salt on their own, or stay in for an emergency purchase, with no guarantee of supply and an agreement up front to accept whatever price it produced. Its emergency contract, with Compass Minerals and estimated at $6.86 million, lists 61 locations.

In McHenry County, 16 of the 30 locations in the bid came up empty, the award notice shows. They were Harvard, Huntley, the City of McHenry, Bull Valley, Lakemoor, nine townships, the Cary Park District and the state highway yard in Woodstock.

Two of those towns' own records show what going it alone cost. The state told both on July 28 that they had no bid, and both ended up buying on their own.

Huntley's staff asked four suppliers, according to a memo to the village board. Three quoted, from $119.41 to $162.09 a ton, and one did not quote. The board approved 2,500 tons from Midwest Salt at $119.41 on August 13. Huntley had paid $71.49 through the state bid the winter before.

The City of McHenry got two quotes, $120.43 from Midwest Salt and $162.97 from Morton, its public works director wrote in an August 17 memo. Staff signed with Midwest on August 7 for 650 tons, $78,279.50 in all, the memo says, and the council approved the agreement on August 17.

Marengo is paying $25 to $26 a ton less than either town, and all three prices include delivery. And Morton, which is selling to Marengo at $94.52 under the state contract, quoted both of those towns more than $162 for one-time purchases outside it.

Huntley's memo explains the gap two ways. The state bid, it says, secures "more effective pricing than agencies individually purchasing rock salt on the open market due to economies of scale." And by August the towns were shopping in what the memo calls "one of the tightest supply environments in recent history."

What Marengo Pays

Marengo's line went to Morton. Here is the city's price over four winters, from the state's price lists and a November 2023 council packet.

The price had fallen two years running before it jumped. Measured against the winter of 2023-24, this year's price is up about 14%.

Marengo was not singled out. Morton's state price lists show 337 customers that were on the company's list both last winter and this one, from cities and townships to school districts and state highway yards. Every one of them is paying more this year. The middle of the pack is up 28.1%. Marengo is up 28.5%. Marengo Township's highway department, Marengo Community High School District 154 and the Riley Township road district got the same $94.52.

What This Means at a Marengo Address

The city asked for less salt this year, 500 tons against 792 last winter. The full 500 tons at the new price comes to $47,260. The same 500 tons at last winter's price would have cost about $10,500 less. That is this year's increase, in dollars.

None of it comes out of the city's general fund. City bill lists post every road salt payment since 2023 to the motor fuel tax fund. Marengo's share of the state motor fuel tax came to about $348,000 over the 12 months through August, money that can only go to road work. (Our gas tax explainer covers where it comes from.)

Marengo Weekly reviewed the Illinois Department of Central Management Services' rock salt solicitation for fiscal year 2027 (27-416CMS-BOSS4-B-52513) and its July 28, 2026 notice of award; the department's August 24, 2026 emergency purchase statement for rock salt (27-416CMS-BOSS4-B-53795); the line items of that emergency solicitation; the department's July 28, 2026 memo to governments that received no bid; Morton Salt's participant price lists under the state contracts for fiscal years 2025, 2026 and 2027; state award records for the rock salt contracts for fiscal years 2021 through 2026; the Village of Huntley's August 13, 2026 board packet and minutes; the City of McHenry's August 3 and August 17, 2026 council packets and minutes; City of Marengo council packets from November 13, 2023, March 25, 2024, March 24, 2025 and April 6, 2026; the minutes of the April 6, 2026 special meeting; city bill lists from January 2023 through September 2026; and Illinois Department of Transportation motor fuel tax allotment records through August 2026. The percentages, the 337-customer comparison and the dollar figures are our arithmetic from those records.