Rockford Home Rule: What Now?
Table of Content
Every city above the 25,000 population threshold gets this rule automatically. But now the population is lower now, around 24,000, and local leaders won’t have much say when it comes to enforcing things like sales tax in the city. The city makes between 3.6 and 3.8 million dollars off sales taxes per year. So if they lose this rule they’ll either have to spike property taxes for residents, or lay people off. Sales, hotel-motel, real estate transfer and food and beverage taxes.
“I think the percentage was wider than last time, and they said no. ‘No home rule. We want to keep our voice and our vote on certain issues, and we’re tired of being taxed to death," he said. This also includes residents of suburbs such as Loves Park and Roscoe. Eklund says these individuals benefit from Rockford’s municipal services, but they don’t pay taxes as outsiders. This could have been remedied under home rule by measures such as hotel, gasoline, and video gaming taxes. The Illinois Constitution grants home rule authority to municipalities that have at least 25,000 residents.
Home Rule – 1999, Rolling Meadows, Illinois
We’ve made investments in and developed new strategies for public safety that are slowly yielding results. We’ve diversified our economy to take advantage of our advanced manufacturing and aerospace technology employment base. Partisan gridlock in Springfield has brought our great state nearly to its knees and had a negative impact on Rockford as well. Without home rule, Rockford only has the power to move forward using tools that the General Assembly gives us. Regardless of sentiment, home rule is off the table, and City Finance Director Carrie Eklund says the city has an alternate budget plan. Brown says his group studied other Illinois home-rule cities such as Aurora, Elgin, Joliet, Waukegan and Springfield, and found that they didn’t use the revenue diversity to lower tax burdens.
Property owners throughout Illinois are sensitive to how much they pay in property taxes and fees. The state has some of the highest property taxes in the nation, and in many smaller Illinois communities, the problem is particularly acute as local budgets are perilously imbalanced. Returning home rule authority to our community is an important tool to help keep that momentum moving forward.
“After home rule downed, utility tax on the way” – Jim Hagerty
“All the decisions have been made by the city council and people don’t feel ownership.. Whereas if all the decisions would’ve been made by referendum, I think the citizens of Freeport would be much more willing to be accountable themselves for where we find ourselves,” Cook told 23 News. Cook has written blogs for years about this issue, under the alias Tutty Baker.
Keep up to date on the news, events and strategies the RAEDC is undertaking to perform the daily work that is economic development. Extensive notices of public hearings and timelines prior to any ordinance that will establish a new tax or increase and existing tax, giving the public ample time to react and respond. At the January 23rd meeting of the Board of Directors, the Rockford Chamber of Commerce voted to endorse supporting the upcoming March 20 referendum to restore Home Rule powers to the City of Rockford. The Board authorized the support via a comprehensive resolution that included recommended policies to limit or provide a governor on the use of Home Rule Powers. The vote followed two extensive review sessions with Mayor McNamara and representatives from the citizens advocacy committee, Our Decisions – Our Solutions. The Chamber’s Government Affairs Council was the vetting body for this topic before making its recommendation to the Chamber Board of Directors.
transfer taxes:
Until then the home rule will stay in place, allowing the freeport government to run as planned. ROCKFORD, Ill. - Following years of decline the city of Freeport has finally seen its population drop below 25,000 people. Home rule gives local governments the power to create laws locally without having to follow state issued guidelines.
Home rule allows municipalities like Freeport an increased means of local control in areas of zoning, building, safety, matters and public health. Since Freeport’s population is now lower than this threshold, Pretzel City residents will vote whether or not to continue with it in November. In 2020 the city tried to cut 1 million dollars from the general budget. Bukas says 17 jobs were lost because of these cuts, and that was just 1 million dollars. Compare that with the 3.8 million they’d lose from sales tax alone, and that’s more than triple the jobs they lost last year. Voting to keep this rule in place will occur on November 8th of next year.
rental ordinances:
Conor Brown is Government Affairs Director for Rockford Area Realtors, a local affiliate group. He disagreed with McNamara and Eklund’s views on diversifying revenue. This funding is vital for the local government to continue its work. Fees can be charged to rental property owners on a per-unit basis which can add up quickly and cause local rents to soar. A YES vote on March 20 will return to our great city the control our residents deserve. While Rockford faces challenges, we have opportunities in front of us poised to help provide a better future for all our residents.
Voters in Tuesday’s primary election rejected the effort to re-implement home rule authority in Rockford. WNIJ spoke with people on both sides of the issue about what this means for Rockford’s future. 4) Give city property to private interests without competitive bidding. The home rule ballot initiative was backed by Democratic Mayor Tom McNamara, who characterized home rule as a tool that could help the city enhance local control outside of Springfield politics.
Taxes by more than 1.5 percent, and property taxes, in some cases, have actually fallen. In some cases, Home Rule even takes away citizens’ right to vote on vital city issues and limits citizens’ voice in government mayoral and council elections. “Taxpayers are effectively muzzled, except at election time, and even then, their choices are limited,” according to Tobin. "We had a grassroots effort. A lot of people that aren’t happy with our mayor and city council, they came forward tonight, and this is really a referendum on the mayor." That’s why many smaller communities try to convince residents that becoming a Home Rule unit would benefit them. Home Rule cuts voters out of having a direct say on whether they want to pay more to live in their community, and almost always the result is HIGHER taxes.
Eighteen failed in large part because voters didn’t trust their elected officials to keep taxes and fees low. Rockford’s utility tax will take three to four months to implement, and this year’s deficit will be covered by that revenue stream alone. But only time will tell what happens with property taxes, other revenue sources, and the future status of home rule. Taxes on sales, hotel-motel use, real estate transfers and food and beverages are paid not only by residents, but by people from out of town, too. Utility taxes will affect only businesses and residents in Rolling Meadows.
In one of his pieces, Cook says at least two aldermen that led the charge to use home rule status to massively indebt Freeport taxpayers before moving out of the city. Freeport residents then had to pay for projects those two aldermen thought were important. He says this is the exact reason Illinois statutes require referendum approval on most issues of public debt. They will have to come to the people for tax and spend issues rather than just them deciding it on the council floor,” Cook said. “There would be an impact on some of the services we provide because that sales tax alone generates about 18 to 20% of our internal fund budget,” Bukas told 23 News. Illinois bypasses the people of the community and puts all the power of local government into the hands of politicians.
That’s why students of government and political science have described the Illinois version of so-called home rule as the most insidious form of government anywhere in the United States of America. Home Rule allows Illinois communities with fewer than 25,000 residents to impose a variety of taxes and fees. Under state law, a non-Home Rule community of 25,000 residents or less can only become a Home Rule unit if voters approve the measure in a referendum.
McNamara, a Democrat, received 68 percent of the vote to Republican Leggero’s 13.6 percent. Leggero strongly criticized McNamara over the home rule ballot question. The Constitution of the United States of America does not mention local governments. This means that to speak about cities or other forms of local government in the United States is to speak about fifty different legal and political situations.
Comments
Post a Comment