Village Council Forum: Question 8

Craig Skala
Other than taxes, I would see an increase in fees, particularly the parking fees for the train station. I know it won’t be popular among the select few that park there, but there's a long waiting list for that and that's a luxury to park there. If you look at the fee structure on the website of the village here, it could be increased and that would help us gain more revenue there.

Geoff Neustadt
Revenue enhancements are something we've been talking about for a long time on the council. We've looked at everything from vehicle stickers to increased parking fees, increased user fees for services from ambulance services to fire services. Part of looking at revenue enhancements has to be considerate of the residents and what our demographics are in the village. We need to talk to the residents as part of our budget process—listen to what they are thinking about as far as revenues.

We've said it probably about 15 times tonight that the village's financial situation is just like ours at home, managing revenues and expenses at the same time.  Specific ideas to raise revenues; I've looked at...liquor tax, food and beverage tax. The council has addressed some of those things. Those are always on the list and are in our original budget documents to try to come up with ways to find more dollars in our village. We have to be very careful with how we raise our revenues so we don't price ourselves out of DuPage County with our competition and our neighbors. So that's something that's always on our minds and we’re always looking for new ways.

Sean Durkin
I think that some of the areas that we need to look at aren't always necessarily raising a tax or increasing the user fee or whatever. It's to look and see if there's ways that we can streamline other services—duplicate services—that the village or maybe the township or maybe the state or the county are already supporting and providing. I think if we do that we can become more lean in that area. I think we'll get the additional revenue there without actually going to the pocketbooks of the residents or the guests or our community as a whole.

But I think, at the same time, we also have to keep continuing to look at the economic development. Because no matter what we do up here, the cost for employees is going to keep going up. Pension mandates are still going to keep going up and we must find ways to continue to address those funding needs, those demands. As long as those pension obligations and employee costs keep going up, user fees and other services may be have to be increased. 

John Page
I guess I differ a little bit. There are two pieces which you can look at. You can look at increasing taxes that are already there, or you can look at broadening the tax base. My goal is to broaden the tax base. I don't think we need higher fees, I don't think we need higher taxes. You can look at those, but the reality is that they're going to be miniscule. If you really want to raise this ship, you need to get more hands raising the ship. It's simple as that. Broaden the tax base, bring in more businesses, more residents into Downers Grove, because together more hands will help us to raise that ship.

Gregory Hosé
The first thing that we have to look at has to be expanding economic development opportunities. And the only way that we're going to be able to do that is if we do what we can to keep taxes and fees low. We have to make sure that we stay competitive with surrounding municipalities, and so that we are able to broaden our tax base and draw in new businesses and raise additional revenue without having to raise taxes.  Now, if we do need to look at revenue enhancements beyond that, I think we need to look at things such as candidate Neustadt mentioned—such as vehicle stickers, and alcohol, food and beverage taxes. Because while property tax is the most predictable piece of tax revenue we have—simply because our property can't get up and move—we shouldn't, because of that, treat it as the village’s ATM. I think we need to look at other ways to expand the tax base and look at other ways that we can implement revenue enhancements.

Becky Rheintgen
I think we need to continue to encourage partnerships and support new businesses through our Economic Development Corporation. Job growth and job creation create additional revenue streams for our village and it lessens the burden on the taxpayers. We need to, as a council, respond to the needs that are brought by the Economic Development Corporation, maybe with variances or sales tax rebates. And we need to balance the residents’ needs and requests with the businesses' needs and requests in our village.

Dominic Scalzetti
I also agree that we still need to aggressively pursue economic development. From driving the streets of Downers Grove for almost 32 years, I know that we've got a lot of areas in town that have been vacant for years. If we can bring economic development to those vacant properties, we can start bringing more tax revenue into the village, and maybe that's going to offset some of the things that we need to do.

As far as the fees, you know you have to take a look and see. I think how our fees compare to the fees of the surrounding towns. There are fees out there that we could maybe take a look at, I don't know whether they're in line or out, but you've got building permits and cigarette tax and gas tax. One of the things that I look at is, if we’re going to bring on a new tax or increase the tax, let's bring something that's going to be used by people outside of Downers Grove. If you're driving through town and you're buying gas, it's not just the Downers Grove residents but it's people coming from outside that's going to be paying some of the taxes if we need to raise them.

Mark Thoman
I think the Economic Development Corporation has pretty much had their pedal to the metal the last couple of years. It may not look like that because of the economic downturn, but once we get past that I think you'll see some marked improvement as far as sales tax revenues and development. As far as specific sources of revenue to help fund the budget, I think one of the things that we have to look at is setting policy.

Council having a larger responsibility, instead of waiting for staff to come to them with proposed policies, to set proposed policies, to consolidate with other organizations. One example is the 911 service.  If we combine with Woodridge we save $220,000 a year.  If we combined with Westmont we save $220,000 a year. Now, Woodridge, combined with the rest of the county, they’re going to save $400,000 a year, and no longer have much to speak of in terms of equipment costs.  In early March, the county held a meeting with municipalities about services they could offer to consolidate, and I think we need to pursue that aggressively.