Burr Ridge voters defeated a tax increase proposal.
Burr Ridge voters defeated a tax increase proposal.
The shellacking Burr Ridge voters delivered to a home rule ballot question on March 17 is a sign that taxpayers have become increasingly suspicious of tax increase proposals disguised as fairness and good government initiatives, said local business owner and village trustee, Zach Mottl, who helped lead a fight against the proposal.
“People didn’t listen to the nonsense about how home rule would be good for the village,” Mottl told the DuPage Policy Journal. “They educated themselves about what it really meant, and they got fired up about it.”
The Burr Ridge initiative, backed by Mayor Gary Grasso, lost 1,654 to 608 on March 17, primary day.
On the state level, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s has labelled his proposed progressive tax a “fair tax,” as the wealthy will pay more than under the current flat tax. But tax experts warn that the middle class, not just the wealthy, will end up paying more as well. The proposal, a constitutional amendment, is on the November ballot.
Burr Ridge’s Grasso argued that home rule status would give the village more flexibility in spending revenue generated by the hotel-motel tax. Now, nearly all the revenues raised by the tax must be spent promoting tourism – a state requirement for non-home rule local governments.
But home rule municipalities also are not obliged to adhere to state mandated caps on local taxes. Property taxes, gasoline taxes, sales taxes and others levies can go as high as the board of a home rule municipality allows. Assurances from Grasso of no tax increases, and a board vote in January that established hurdles to any future tax increases, were still not enough to persuade the voters to approve home rule.
“People saw it as a power grab,” said Burr Ridge attorney Ellen Raymond, who engineered a grassroots effort to defeat home rule. “And they also understood local governments are not constrained by promises or even resolutions not to raise taxes in the future.”
Jim Tobin, founder of the Chicago-based Taxpayers United of America (TUA), says the defeat in Burr Ridge and the defeat of seven other home rule proposals over the past two years, bodes well for the defeat of Pritzker’s progressive tax, which he calls the “income theft amendment.”
TUA helped defeat a progressive income tax try all the way back in 1992.
“Then it was disguised as an education initiative,” Tobin said.
Tobin also said that the vote on progressive income tax should be pushed back a year because of the coronavirus emergency.
“If this is as serious as they’re saying, then it only makes sense to delay the vote,” he said.
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