County in dire straits

I honestly fear that we're at the point where there will be no good solution. The primary responsibility of the DuPage County Board is to make the DuPage County Budget - and it seems they have completely failed to act responsibly over the years in creating it. But don't take my word for it - read a collection of what the people leading DuPage have to say about the proposed budget cuts.

Ten DuPage County Board members, if you include Chairman Robert Schillerstrom, have served eight years or longer on the board - a majority. They completely failed to plan for our current fiscal disaster, instead year after year telling us that they had reduced property taxes by some minuscule amount that increased assessments usually wiped away. They either weren't honest or didn't know about our true, long-term fiscal condition, which was a structural deficit. DuPage residents deserve better - and next time they vote for county board they should vote to get better. We have not been served well.

I have yet to read an article that explains why the cuts are needed. Since we are cutting positions, I assume that these positions were funded in the past -- where has the revenue gone? To put it another way, if we are cutting spending by 10%, unless revenues have fallen, we should have a surplus of 10%. Why are revenues expected to be less than last year? Exactly what has caused this shortfall? The proposal is to increase taxes, but what happened to the money we had last year? Can someone explain what I'm missing?

Thanks

I feel terribly negligent not having already made comment on this subject. Another branch of Government has hit the wall and will tell us that they are just out of money even after having cut everything they possibly can to the bone. How many times have we heard that?

I would suggest that they have just made a good start, yes just a start. The County may have to slow down their building program. They may have to re-evaluate their non-essential programs, leaf collection, etcetera, the pay structure and retirement plans, just like any other “business”.

We are in a different time with a different economy and now must make those adjustments. Now that you’ve paid it, take the time to examine your Real Estate Tax Bill. The Sun Times is correct, every government entity wants more money and it is us the taxpayer that must decide how much we can afford and how much we allocate to each of them.

DuPage County had hoped to add to solve all their problems by increasing the tax on the killers of the County, the tax everyone thinks is deserved, the one on the cigarette smoker, but failed. You can just bet that shortly you’ll be hearing how the increase we will be asked to pay will only cost us a few pennies a week, the same line we hear every time from every government controlled entity. The schools do it, the Villages and Cities do it, and the State will soon be doing it.

Ok voters, how would you handle this in your life? Do you just go to your boss and tell him you need more money, and poof, he gives you a raise? If he says he can’t afford to increase your income what then do you do? Do you continued on with your same spending or do you implement change? The County, along with their pension fund along with the County Health Department and their pension fund, along with the Forrest Preserve and their pension fund, and the DuPage Airport Authority receive an automatic increase in tax dollars every year based on the historically skyrocketing assessed fair cash value assigned. My favorites are the Park and the School Districts. I wish I received this benefit.

My suggestion to the County, keep cutting!

Hi Sam,

The immediate answer to your question is that for five years, starting in 2003, the county was permitted to pull $15 million a year from the DuPage Water Commission (a total of $75 million). While that money was originally supposed to be for "homeland security" it ended up largely being used for what most would consider general operating costs (e.g. $10 million for police and public safety (ongoing costs to prevent layoffs, not new staff), $5 million for emergency cash reserves, $300,000 for economic development, etc.).

The "structural deficits" I refer to in my earlier comment above are a result, in part, of depending disproportionately on residential property taxation as opposed to having a bigger business mix (see for example the loss of Lucent business and other businesses with technology jobs that we've never really recovered since around 2000). It's also a problem of road maintenance where costs have climbed dramatically because of the increased cost of oil (it's a cost for asphalt and oil spraying as well as filling up trucks carrying materials). We've also, as a county and often as cities/towns, not properly considered what the real impact costs are of development (see for example development near Route 59 in southern Naperville/Plainfield - which goes into Will County but affects DuPage) - and by charging less than what it costs us, the added burden is spread amongst DuPage taxpayers who in effect subsidize development through future increased taxes.

There likely were a number of ways of dealing with this but unfortunately the DuPage County Board chose to mostly avoid the issue and 'kick it down the road.' Well, now we are 'down the road' and we have to deal with the cumulative effect of years of neglect.

The Last time I looked about 40% ( and growing) of Naperville lived in WILL COUNTY Illinois!!! Yet Potluck has no WILL COUNTY Topic posted JUST DuPage.

Guess what ? FOR TEN YEARS There have been NO Tax increasesin Will, The General tax rate has stayed the same.

While the Tax rate stayed Flat: We built a new 70 million jail ADF (jail) with Revenue Bonds that sold at a good rate due to our AA+ tax bond rating. How about it Potluck Editors doesn't 40% of the population deserve some space & recognition here ?