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Full Text on Taxes
Taxes:
In the Village we pay all sorts of taxes. The most obvious tax is property tax, followed by sales tax. We also pay a tax on every gallon of gasoline we buy, vehicle parking stickers, real estate transfer tax, income tax (yes the Village gets some of this), utility tax, etc. In total we derive about 45% of our Village revenue from taxes. I’ll focus on property taxes in this week’s message because sales tax, while in our control to some degree, is not likely to increase given the disastrous results of the recent Cook County increase in sales tax. Besides we raise about $3.4 million a year in sales tax (our portion is 0.25% of a total 9.25% tax) and now would be the wrong time to tinker with this given our desire to draw more shoppers into the Village and the fact that sales tax is a very regressive tax and particularly hurtful in difficult economic times.
Each of our property tax bills has increased. Most seem to increase every year and we feel a certain loss of control since the bill is not the easiest bill to understand. (If my credit card bill were as difficult to read as my tax bill, I’d never tolerate it.) One reason that property tax bills are so convoluted is that it represents many different taxing authorities including the Village, Park District, Schools districts community college, Cook County, Wilmette library and sewer district. In the most recent issue of the Wilmette Communicator these taxing bodies were detailed. School Districts #203 and #39 make up almost 60% of your property tax bill. The Village’s portion is 11.3% of your total bill. From that we pay for Police, Fire and Public Works and all the other programs the Village funds – note that Park (6.8%) and Library (4.6%) Districts are separate line items and not included in the 11.3% Village portion or under control of the Village Board. I have included the chart from The Communicator and the Wilmette web site has good data on it too. (http://www.wilmette.com/departments/finance/taxes.aspx)
My view on taxes is that we need to drive efficiencies in the Village and focus on the services we really need and want in order to live within a smaller budget rather than larger. I am willing to forgo some Village services and programs in efforts to stop the annual tax increase. I’m willing to look for efficiency in our Village operations, seek consensus and make hard decisions on spending. The Village needs to do its part and needs to collaborate with the dozen other taxing authorities and neighboring communities to be sure we collectively tighten our belts and find efficiencies, much like the private sector and much like you and I do each day.
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