To Be Or Not To Be Is Not The Question

Who likes taxes? Business doesn’t like to be taxed. Residents don’t like to be taxed. Nobody likes to be taxed. And Naperville city officials don’t like to add taxes, especially if those city officials are city council members serving two-year terms which includes, lowest incumbent vote-getter, JudyBrodhead, Kevin Coyne, lowest overall vote-getter Kevin Gallaher, and John Krummen.

The City of Naperville has a projected $6.8 million budget deficit for fiscal 2016. The current municipal debt is over $120 million and increasing daily. Unless something is done to get these negative numbers under control, it can threaten the city’s AAA bond rating. The city is currently paying $13 million yearly to reduce its debt level. This is not a good position for the City of Naperville to find itself, and the City of Naperville is us. If the City loses, we lose, if the City benefits, we benefit.

It took City officials over a decade to dig this hole, and as city manager Doug Krieger recently stated, “the way to fill the hole is with cash, and the way to get cash is from rate payers”. Watch and listen to Naperville city manager Doug Krieger:

In other words it’s time for residents, and businesses, and consumers to ante up and fill the hole with cash.

The question is no longer, will the City impose a first-time-ever sales tax. The answer is a resounding ‘yes’. The question is will it be 1/4%, 1/2% or 1%. It’s anticipated that a .25% tax will bring in about $15 million, a .5% tax will bring in about $30 million, and a full 1% tax could see up to $60 million rolling in. That’s a lot of dollars to help fill a huge hole.

Watch and listen as Naperville business owner, and the mayor of Homer Glen, George Yukich shares his thoughts and experience on the benefit of creating a city sales tax:

Homer Glen (near Lockport) has no debt, they save their money for capital purchases, and have no municipal property tax. They don’t spend what they don’t have. It sounds like the same type of advice we give our children. It works.

I am not excited about another tax being inflicted, however since it is going to happen, I say let’s shoot for the stars and go with 1%. If I’m going to the oral surgeon to have a tooth extracted, I don’t want the surgeon taking a fourth out now, another fourth later, and then the final half after that. Let it happen all at once and move on.

It’s a consumption tax. If I don’t consume, I don’t pay. It’s my choice. Whereas most taxes are paid without choice. With those taxes I either pay now, or pay more later with interest, or in fines, penalties, or incarceration.

So now rather than something costing me $1.00, I will be paying $1.01. I can live with that. Plus I get four pennies back in change for my grandsons’ piggy bank.

Show 6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Gerard H Schilling

    You obviously are not familiar with the concept of the straw that broke the camel’s back. If you think for one minute the revenue raised (1%) sales tax across the board will be used to reduce our debt be it bond or yearly operating costs across 40 funds your delusional. They will do what all politicians do which is spend it on nonessential, wasted projects like smart meters, wind turbines, snow hill liquor bars, solar panel rebates, electric car charging stations etc. These left wing, liberal, global warmists have an endless list of projects that our Federal government is willing to cofound and our politicians award to their cronies and elitist who think they know what’s best for the peons,

    May I suggest this city does what any fiscally responsible adult does which is LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS and if you are going to raise taxes of any kind you do it by a referendum.

    .

    • Again many of the “nonessential, wasted” projects you listed actually costs the city very little if anything. The smart meters were federally funded, Rotary Hill liquor eatery is part of the Park District, electric car charging cost are past on to users, etc.

      The city council and staff are and have always been very conservative in managing city funds. Most of the indebtedness comes from capital improvement projects and not from daily city operations.

      The city’s budget has grown around 9% over the last 5 years while inflation has been over 11%, that is actually a 2% reduction in spending. Also over this same period the city has reduced it’s portion of the property taxes by 5%. Anyone that describes this kind of fiscal management as not ” LIVE WITHIN YOUR MEANS” is either ignorant of how city finances have been handled or is simply looking for something to bitch about without taking the time to learn the facts.

      • Gerard H Schilling

        Jim maybe only you miss the forest from the trees. The average citizens when looking at his annual tax bill cares not whether the taxing authority is the county, township. city. forest preserve, various school systems /colleges etc. All they know is yearly the total increases by hundreds of dollars and has been doing it most of the 35+ years I have lived here.

        The waste, graft and corruption has reached such an extent as to jeopardize the continuing existence of our state and many of the cities within it. It’s time the average tax payer says enough and demands a critical accounting of what is being spent, by whom and for what.

        The only ignorant person on these postings seems to be you. One example is the smart meters which required a matching bonding issue of 11 million to match the Dep. of Energy’s grant of 11 million and the 3 million dollar overrun on the project. Lastly, many of us forgot more then you ever new about politics, city governments and finances so get off of your high horse!

        • You keep talking about government organizations other than the city. I thought this was a city council watchdog page? How is it appropriate to keep bringing up issues with other government organizations, which the city government and it’s council have no control over, to attack and question the actions of city officials? Lets try to stick the the subject matter this page claims to be about (city council and city governance) and stop running off into the bushes to distract and mislead reader about their city government operates.

  2. whoisjohngalt

    “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” – Thomas Sowell

    • Elected official in Naperville do pay a price for being wrong.

      Politically, they hear it from their neighbors every time they step out of their house. They hear it at every public event they attend. They hear it at their full time jobs (elected officials only paid $15k/yr). And they hear it, through votes, every election cycle.

      Financially, they hear it when they go out to eat or shop since, as residents, they pay the same taxes we do. They hear it at work, how these fees and taxes, impact business. And they see it on their property taxes bill just like all the rest of us.

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