Monthly Archives: July 2009

City of Peoria, Taxes

Tax confusion widespread in Peoria

46 Comments

The local media started looking into (and publicizing) the story I posted a couple days ago about Peoria businesses charging too much tax. The Journal Star has two articles here and here, and WMBD Channel 31 did a piece on the 6:00 news tonight (the web version is here).

I just want to reiterate that you should really check your receipts. My mother-in-law took our family out to eat tonight at Chili’s (Glen and University) and they charged her 11% sales tax (it should be 10%). We told the manager, but there was nothing he could do because it has to go through the corporate office.

After reading the article in the paper, my dad checked his receipt from Best Buy — he bought a new HDTV earlier this month — and sure enough, they charged him 9% sales tax. Best Buy has since corrected the issue, and they refunded him the overcharge with no fuss.

Chili’s doesn’t appear on the official list (Exhibit B) that was released by the city today. Neither is CJ Banks (Northwoods Mall), which is charging 9% on clothing. I hear tell that someone’s keeping a list of businesses about whom residents are complaining overcharged them for tax — and it’s getting pretty long. Plus the Journal Star says the city’s Finance Department has received “hundreds” of calls.

It’s easy to see how these big corporations got confused. Take a look at Exhibit A on this memo. That’s the notice that the state sent to all businesses in Peoria letting them know that a small strip of land downtown was going to have a higher tax rate beginning July 1. To those of us who know what the Hospitality Improvement Zone (HIZ) is, this is easy as pie to follow. But suppose your company’s headquarters are in Minnesota. They would have no idea where the HIZ area was, and they would probably figure that if it didn’t affect them, the state wouldn’t be dumb enough to pay the postage to send them a notice that it’s changing.

That appears to be what is happening all over Peoria. So, double-check those receipts!

City of Peoria

Would “pay as you throw” make Peoria dirtier?

15 Comments

We have grave reservations about charging Peorians a fee for garbage pick-up, and we think City Council members should, too.

Non-payment will be a problem. Littering will increase. So will illegal dumping: on county roads, in commercial Dumpsters, even on city streets and parking lots. Garbage very possibly will accumulate, indoors, out of sight of inspectors…. Peoria will be a dirtier city if garbage isn’t picked up at every home, every week. It will be a dirtier city if streets and gullies become dumping grounds for people who quit paying their trash collector.

While these dire warnings may sound like they just came out of today’s paper, they didn’t. They were published in the Journal Star on June 24, 2003. The reason? Peoria was considering implementing a $6 per month garbage fee.

I wonder if anyone had the foresight to quantify how much illegal dumping there was before the fee went into effect so we can compare it to how much there is now. That might give us an accurate picture of how much there will be if Peoria goes to some sort of “pay as your throw” system next year. While there have been reports of illegal dumping since the garbage fee went into effect (one even appeared on this blog), it doesn’t appear to be the widespread plague of filth we were warned would happen.

I can’t help but think that maybe — just maybe — concerns about “pay as your throw” causing Peoria to degenerate into some kind of Lord of the Flies scenario might be similarly overstated. Nevertheless, I understand the drawbacks — specifically, the “pay” part of the proposal.

But the truth is that you’re going to pay no matter what. It’s not a matter of paying or not paying; it’s just a matter of how you’ll pay. If it’s not “pay as your throw,” how shall we pay for it? Raise property taxes? Sales taxes? The garbage fee? Pick your poison. Costs are going to go up even if we didn’t change a thing. Adding recycling is going to raise costs more. Property taxes would be a progressive way to pay for it; raising the garbage fee would be regressive. Putting the extra fee on the user would hit large families pretty hard, and in that sense could also be seen as regressive. Raising the sales tax… well… we have to save that for necessities like museums, civic centers, and hotels….

There are no easy answers, only more questions. But I doubt “pay as you throw,” if ultimately adopted, would turn Peoria residences into mini-landfills. Whatever the reason is for rejecting “pay as your throw,” it shouldn’t be that.

City of Peoria, Taxes

New HIZ tax being collected all over Peoria

37 Comments

Are Peoria businesses charging you too much sales tax? If they are, good luck getting them to fix it; you won’t find any help from the city or state. Check your receipt. For general merchandise, you should only be charged 8% in most of the City of Peoria.

My dad knows that, which is why he was surprised when some clothes that my mom bought at Northwoods Mall today were taxed at 9%. He wrote me to ask when the tax rate was raised, and how he could have missed the news. My dad has been reading the Journal Star cover to cover every day for the past fifty years, and he pays particularly close attention to financial information, so it would be very unlikely he missed big news like the sales tax going up a whole percent city-wide. And I have some experience exposing businesses that charge too much sales tax.

I checked the city’s website and confirmed that it was still 8%, broken down as follows:

  • 6.25% State of Illinois
  • 1.50% City of Peoria
  • 0.25% County of Peoria

He called the store and told them that information, and they said “it went up July first in Peoria to 9% from 8 1/4.” Dad said it was never 8 1/4% ever in Peoria, and the salesperson said “it is all done from their corporate offices in Minnesota,” and gave him the phone number for their corporate office. Oh, and by the way, they added, you’ll have to sit through a long automated voice-activated system before you get to talk to a real person. That’s customer service for you. So the local business isn’t taking action to fix the error.

Well, I called up the finance department at the City, and they told me that the tax rate did go up July 1st in Peoria to 9%, but only within the boundaries of the Hospitality Improvement Zone, or HIZ. You may recall that the City imposed a 1% additional sales tax on a small area downtown that includes the Pere Marquette, Holiday Inn City Centre, and Mark Twain Hotel; that money is to go toward building a new Marriott next to the Pere Marquette, so the other hotels get the pleasure of contributing to their competition and put themselves out of business. But I digress.

The City’s finance department went on to say that they’ve gotten several calls about this problem (i.e., businesses outside of the HIZ charging 9% sales tax), and that there appears to be some confusion among the city’s businesses as to what tax rate they are supposed to be charging. The person I talked to said one man called in saying he got charged 9% at a North Peoria gas station, and that the station refunded the overage when he went back to complain after talking to the city. I asked if the city could do anything to correct the problem, and they said all they can do is refer me to the Illinois Department of Revenue, and they didn’t have the number, but I could get it by calling information. So the City isn’t taking action to fix the error.

I called the Illinois Department of Revenue and they verified that the correct tax rate is 8% outside of the HIZ. It’s even on their website at http://tax.illinois.gov/ — you just click on the Tax Rate Finder link on the menu to the left and follow the prompts. The HIZ rate of 9% is listed first, which may be part of the confusion, but it also provides a list of the individual business addresses that are affected by the HIZ tax (there are only about 46 of them), and the next rate says “OUTSIDE ABOVE DISTRICT(S)” and lists the 8% rate.

I asked the representative what could be done about businesses overcharging, and she said that the correct rate is preprinted on the tax remittance form the businesses send to the state. She said the business can call Central Registration at 217-785-3707 with their Illinois Business Tax (IBT) number and verify the correct rate. But she said it probably wouldn’t do any good to report them to the “cheat line” (1-800-243-2811). As far as the state is concerned, as long as the business is remitting the total amount of tax they collect, they’re okay. It’s only tax fraud if they collect, say, 9%, but only remit 8%. As long as they remit the whole 9%, the state doesn’t care and is happy to keep the money. So the state isn’t taking action to fix the error.

Apparently no one is looking out for consumers in this town. Businesses can charge any additional tax amount they want and the city and state don’t give a rip. It’s up to you, the citizen, to take matters into your own hands and convince the businesses and/or their parent corporations that they’re overcharging us. There’s no penalty, no law against overtaxing. You have to take action to fix these business errors, and good luck doing it.

City Council, City of Peoria

Liveblogging the Peoria City Council Meeting, 7/28/2009

31 Comments

Hi everyone. I’m here at Peoria City Hall, Council Chambers, typing on my new laptop on the city’s wifi connection. I’ll be updating this post throughout the evening, so check back.

The agenda is here.

Fair warning: This is a really, really long post because it’s a really, really, really long meeting.

Continue reading Liveblogging the Peoria City Council Meeting, 7/28/2009 →

City Council, City of Peoria

Recycling should be incentivized

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Recycle SymbolRight now in Peoria, there is an incentive to throw everything into the landfill and recycle nothing. You all know why. We pay for garbage collection through our property taxes. Then we pay again through the $6 monthly “garbage fee” (actually a regressive tax) on our water bills. Then, if you want to recycle, you pay yet another bill directly to Waste Management of a little over three dollars a month. When confronted with a choice between throwing away paper and plastic in the regular garbage for which they’ve already paid twice, or paying a third fee to recycle, most people (reportedly 91% of Peoria households) not surprisingly choose the former.

That needs to change.

Recycling is the ecologically responsible thing to do. Plastic, copper and metal recycling are some of the activities that can be done by everybody that can help not only our community but the world as a whole. And with single-stream recycling (where you can throw all your recyclables into the same bin), it couldn’t be any easier. The experts say that 80% of what Americans throw away is recyclable, and I believe it. Since we’ve started recycling, my family of five only has one can of regular garbage a week. Everything else gets recycled.

In light of that, some sort of modified “pay to throw” system would be reasonable and relatively easy to implement. The idea I’ve heard that has the most promise is this: Unlimited recycling pickup every other week; one can of regular garbage pickup every week; and a fee (per bag or per can, perhaps) for any additional regular garbage. This would incentivize recycling without being punitive. After all, we’ll always have regular garbage; not everything is recyclable. It’s only fair to provide some level of regular garbage hauling without an additional fee.

There are some who are worried about illegal dumping. I think there’s a way around that, too. Instead of requiring residents to buy stickers for additional bags of refuse and refusing to pick up non-stickered bags (the system used in some other communities, like Morton), waste haulers would still pick up any/all garbage left at the curb or alley side. Any applicable additional fees owed by the household would be included on that household’s next water bill. This makes it convenient for everyone. If the current $6 garbage fee hasn’t led to illegal dumping, using the water bill to collect additional fees won’t either — especially if the council decides to adopt Councilman Turner’s suggestion of rolling the current $6 garbage fee into the property tax bill.

The council will be discussing the garbage contract at its regular meeting tonight (July 28) at 6:15.


City of Peoria, Streets

Will these projects ever become reality?

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I had a strange sense of deja vu last night.

I attended an open house meeting Wednesday at the Gateway Building to look at plans for Washington and Adams Streets (Route 24) from I-474 to Hamilton Blvd. There were lots of artist’s renderings of how it could look in the future, with wider sidewalks, on-street parking, street trees, shorter crossing distances for pedestrians, etc. But I got the distinct feeling I’d been through this exercise before.

Oh, that’s right — I have. I remember seeing the same thing at the Sheridan Triangle open house meetings. I see a pattern emerging here. The city gets finished with the feasibility study for these projects, then they don’t appropriate money for the engineering or construction of them, so they wither on the vine.

There’s $10 million in state construction money earmarked and set aside for Peoria to use. This was money that was secured years ago to move the S-curve where Adams and Jefferson meet north of downtown. That project never materialized either, so now the money is available for another project. But no one’s tapping into it.

Instead, lack of money is cited as the problem for pushing off these projects. Improvements to Main Street were put on the back burner by second district council member Barbara Van Auken because it’s estimated to cost $10 million. And in November of last year, the council decided to delay five large capital projects — including the Sheridan Triangle redevelopment — until some time in the future when they might possibly issue bonds to pay for them. No word on when that will show up on the agenda.

Meanwhile, the council has had no problem finding money or issuing bonds to give $39.5 million to a private hotel developer. Nor have they had any trouble spending $55 million overbuilding the Peoria Civic Center. There’s plenty of money to go around for non-necessities — and taxes imposed to pay for them. And these deals get through the council lickety-split.

So the problem isn’t money. It’s priorities.

City Council, City of Peoria, Kellar Branch

More bald-faced lies about the Kellar Branch (Updated)

19 Comments

At the last City Council meeting (not including executive sessions), the council deferred an agreement that will bring them closer to converting strategic infrastructure into a hiking/biking trail. Last week, the agreement was posted on the city’s website so we could all read it. But they haven’t posted the revisions. I guess they don’t want the little people to see the agreement before they vote on it next Tuesday.

What is posted includes this whopper of a statement (emphasis mine):

There have been numerous hearings concerning discontinuance of part of the Kellar Branch to a trail. No objections have been raised.

That last sentence is a bald-faced lie. I personally have objected to the discontinuance at those hearings, and so have several other rail supporters. It’s all on record, too. Look it up in the official minutes, Mr. Holling. You’re supposed to be presenting facts, not fantasy, to the council.

Also, if you haven’t seen it already, check out David Jordan’s excellent post comparing Davenport and Peoria.

UPDATE: The agreement is now on the City’s website here. It was added Friday afternoon. Also, according to a report on WMBD-TV, channel 31, the city says they were misunderstood when they said no objections had been made to abandoning a portion of the Kellar Branch. They say they meant only that no neighbors abutting the branch line had objected.

I guess they forgot about this one from the minutes of February 20, 2007:

Mr. Joe Marmon, President of Carver Lumber Company, said although the western connection was constructed to supplement the advent of the closure of Keller Branch, the western connection had caused Carver Lumber to compromise service and competitive pricing. He said Carver was forced to use alternative methods for distribution. He said he had not used the western branch for several months, due to the pricing problems. He spoke in support of services provided by Pioneer Rail, and he urged the Council to keep Keller Branch open for future economic development.

Not only was Mr. Marmon a neighbor directly abutting the tracks, but a user of rail service as well. It should be pointed out that the city promised Carver Lumber in writing that there would be “no interruption in rail service” while the western spur was being built, and that the city would intercede on their behalf if service lagged or costs rose. In fact, service was interrupted, and the city did nothing. Then when service was restored via the western connection, the city did nothing to help. The city continues to show its contempt for this business; it doesn’t even acknowledge their objections which are clearly on the record.

Oh, I know what they’ll say — Carver Lumber doesn’t directly abut the portion of the branch to be abandoned. That’s true. I guess if you define “neighborhood concerns” narrowly enough, you can make it exclude any objectors and make it easier to push through unwise agreements.

City Council, City of Peoria

Eliminate alley garbage pickup? What about blind alleys?

5 Comments

On the City Council agenda for Tuesday, July 28, is a request from Public Works to send out bids for a new garbage collection contract. They want to get separate pricing on five different scenarios. These are all well and good, except for alternative #5:

The Proposer will be requested to provide the price for the collection of all garbage at curbside only in all sections of the City. This will be a monthly fee based on 39,000 homes served. Pricing will be requested for collection as included in the Base Bid and as proposed in Alternatives #2, #3 and #4.

To try to quell an uproar from residents in the older parts of town, the council communication emphasizes that “Staff is not recommending any one service over another, but is only seeking City Council approval to develop the Request for Proposals based on the attached outline of services and alternates.”

But look, folks, there’s only one reason why that alternative is included in the quote: Staff thinks money can be saved there, and they want to quantify it so they can sell it to the council as a cost-saving measure. If that wasn’t the reason, they wouldn’t ask for it.

The council needs to tell the staff that elimination of alley pickup is not an option, and demand that they remove that alternative from the bid package.

“Why?” you ask. “Shouldn’t we look at all the ways we can save money on the contract?”

Sure! Let’s look at all the options. I’ll bet you that we could save a bunch of money if people who lived on cul-de-sacs brought their garbage out to the nearest through street. That would eliminate a significant amount of time and effort on the part of the garbage haulers, and I’m sure would lead to a lot of savings.

I’m not joking!

I see little difference between alleys and cul-de-sacs. In fact, do you know what another name for “cul-de-sac” is? “Blind alley.” Alleys and cul-de-sacs function almost identically. Whereas neighborhood streets on a grid provide a thoroughfare useful to all residents, alleys only benefit the immediately-adjacent residents. Cul-de-sacs are the same — they benefit only adjacent residents, while collector streets benefit all residents of a subdivision. Alleys provide access for service vehicles (like garbage trucks) and to private garages away from busy thoroughfares. So do cul-de-sacs. It’s harder for larger trucks to navigate alleys; it’s also harder for larger trucks to navigate cul-de-sacs, especially at the end when they have to turn around or back out.

So if we’re going to look at eliminating alley garbage pickup for some of the city’s residents, why don’t we look at eliminating “blind alley” (cul-de-sac) garbage pickup for the rest of the city’s residents? Of course, they’ll never consider that. They’ll tell me that’s crazy talk. It’s not even considered an option.

And that’s my point. Elimination of alley garbage pickup in the older parts of town shouldn’t be an option either. It’s just as crazy.

General News

Heartland Partnership rolls out new survey

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The Heartland Partnership is conducting a survey of what people think of the tri-county area. However, they only want to know what things you like about the region, not what you don’t like. So the purpose of the survey appears to be an effort to get some good marketing quotes and some statistics on what area residents like best the region. It’s only 10 questions, so it doesn’t take long to complete. Here’s the info:

The Peoria metropolitan area; including Peoria, Tazewell, and Woodford Counties; would like your help gathering information to better market our region.

Log on to www.peoriametrosurvey.com and take a few moments to complete our brief survey. Tell us what you think about living in the Peoria metro area. You can also register to win a prize package. This brief survey has only 10 questions and should take less than 5 minutes to complete. We look forward to hearing from you!

Help us take the pulse of the Peoria Area and be sure to pass the survey on to your friends and contacts!