The City Council passed a budget that didn’t raise property taxes.
There’s been another murder in Peoria, bringing the total for 2006 to 18… so far:
This is the city’s 18th homicide of 2006, besting a 13-year-old record 17 in 1993. Of this year’s slayings, 11 remain unsolved.
But the City Council passed a budget that didn’t raise property taxes.
We still have an understaffed fire department. Although they’ve moved personnel and equipment from Fire Station 13 over the Fire Station 11 temporarily, there’s no overall increase in personnel or equipment, and some have argued that the city is actually less protected as a result.
But the City Council passed a budget that didn’t raise property taxes.
We can’t seem to get our snow plowed adequately or in a timely manner. As a result, we’ve had to deal with washboard streets and the schools had to close for three days even though there was an intervening weekend.
But the City Council passed a budget that didn’t raise property taxes.
We still have a regressive tax known as the $6 garbage “fee.” This so-called garbage fee actually goes to fund police and is collected on our water bills. We pay handsomely for Illinois American to collect this fee for the city. And it’s one of the two main reasons there was a big turnover on the council last election. And now we’ve also raised the building fees which may cause some to wonder if we’re trying to discourage economic growth in Peoria.
But the City Council passed a budget that didn’t raise property taxes.
Gary Sandberg said it best last night: “Our [the Council’s] job is not to balance the budget without a tax increase.” The Council’s job is to provide essential services like public safety and street/infrastructure maintenance. That’s what we thought we were getting with the “new” council. Instead, we got a council that, it could be argued, considers “holding the line on property taxes” to be the highest public good.
I’m not arguing for higher taxes, per se. What I’m arguing for is the city to fully fund basic public services before they fund anything else — like the Gateway building, for instance. The Gateway building is not an essential service. It’s nice. I like the Gateway building. If the city has a plethora of funds and the citizens want that service, I have no problem with it. But to have this service (and others) funded while at the same time we can’t fully staff our fire stations is about as ridiculous — and irresponsible — as it gets.
I’m sorry to be so harsh, but this budget was a cop out. The tough decisions were dodged. The apple cart was not upset. It’s more of the same. I thought the voters last election made it clear we wanted something different.
There’s another election coming up when we’ll have the opportunity to elect five at-large members of the council. Remember this budget. And remember these three words: essential services first.
No more taxes. If property taxes are raised, doesn’t that hurt the very economic development that you keep crying for?
For how long has the fire station 11 thing been going on? The fire dept does a much better than expected job at protecting people in that area and it seems in hindsight that it isn’t as necessary as some would suggest to have it “fully staffed”. Of course, the union would say otherwise…
Actually the Spring election opportunity will be for FIVE At Large Councl members not two. Let’s hope ALL FIVE are basic essential services first candidates, not just Two of them or nothing will be gained or changed again.
I’m okay with no more taxes. But that means something has to be cut, and that “something” shouldn’t be public safety. It can be other things, like parking subsidies or money the city gives to other municipal organizations that have their own taxing authority (e.g., park district, school district) or the Gateway building. If, however, the city wants to keep all the extra stuff and fully fund public safety, then they need to find new sources of revenue, and progressive property taxes are a more equitable way to get that revenue than regressive fees like the $6/mo. garbage fee.
And as far as whether it’s necessary to have fully staffed fire stations, my boss tells this story about how he used to be a vice president of IT in a company, and the IT department printed voluminous reports for different departments. He had a hunch most of these were legacy reports and no one was even looking at them anymore, so he decided to try a little experiment. He would deliberately not print one or two reports and see if he got any complaints; if he got a complaint, the report stayed on the list and continued to be printed. If he got no complaints, the report was no longer printed. Do you think we should try this method with the fire stations? Just start shutting them down one by one and, if no one dies, decide that those stations just weren’t necessary? That’s essentially your argument for why fire station 11 needn’t be fully staffed.
If reducing staff at fire station 11 were based on a comprehensive study that showed we had too many fire stations in Peoria and we could be more efficient and maintain the same level of service by moving some staff/station equipment around and eliminating other staff/equipment, then I would agree with you. But that’s not why fire station 11 is understaffed. It’s understaffed because a previous council decided to spend the city’s money on non-essentials at the expense of basic city services.
Thanks, Gary. I fixed it. I was thinking of the fact that two incumbents were leaving, so we’re guaranteed to have at least two new council members. But you’re right, all five seats are on the ballot.
First – “There’s another election coming up when we’ll have the opportunity to elect two new at-large members of the council. Remember this budget. And remember these three words: essential services first. ” We have the opportunity to elect five new at-large council members! Turner and Jacob do not want to raise taxes for basic services, maybe for a new museum but not for basic services. Sandberg should be the only one reelected. THE MESSAGE SHOULD BE LOUD AND CLEAR !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lastly – MDD has no idea what he is saying. Remember, the city said (and had press conferences) we were ready for this snow storm. Taxes SHOULD NOT be raised – spending priorities should be reevaluated.
11 days left for working on nominating petitions….. *cough* CJ for City Council……
Oh and you only need 222 of your closest friends to sign your petition. You might want to make it a round 250 or 300 just in case some of them turn out less useful than you had hoped.
Nah, bloggers have more fun.
What can be more fun than mud wrestling in the horseshoe?
Seriously tho, who is running? With only 11 days left for nominations, people need to step up. We know 2 of the five incumbants are not. We also could probably guess that the 3 incumbants will snag the top 3 slots in the proportional voting. It would be nice to know who is declared or circulating petitions.
I didn’t say close all of the fire stations. I just said that maybe that station is now staffed appropriately. Who said that fire station 11 is understaffed in the first place? The fireman’s union or the bloggers that live close to it?
Ever driven by the back side of the police station downtown? How many police cars are parked and right now, still snow-covered, not out on patrol of any sort at any given moment? 30? 40? Why do they need so many extra vehicles? At $20,000+ a car, that’s a lotta cash sitting there depreciating and it sure isn’t helping with the crime.
There are multitudes of opportunities for cutting waste within the city and county right now.
CJ: “But the City Council passed a budget that didn’t raise property taxes.”
No. Sorry. Wrong. The RATE remained the same. The EAV rose because of new assessments and new construction in city limits. That will let the city increase the levy, which means city taxpayers will pay more as a whole than they did last year. The county government actually determines the rate and sends out the bill, but the council determined exactly how high they could set the levy and not trigger an increase int he rate.
That’s a tax increase, even if the rate remains the same. I think the council voted to approve the levy last month.
You’re kind of missing my point, aren’t you, Billy? I acknowledge that technically it would have been more precise to say “tax rate,” although when one speaks of “raising taxes” it’s generally understood that we’re talking about the rate, not specific dollar amounts. But the point is, they still are not adequately funding basic services.
I wouldn’t have a problem with paying (a little bit) more property tax IF I KNEW they were ONLY going to essential services..more police , fire staton 11, a snowplow down my street before 3 days after a snowstorm…. AND PRIOR to this increase, the city council cuts back funding and building of Civic Centers, Rec Plexs, Museums, Gateway Buildings, ball parks, etc. Take that 2% entertainment tax crutch away from the Civic Center…time to stand on their own two feet after they have their bigger facility. Use that 2% for essential services.
Instead of raising property taxes, the city could have raised the fine for an abandoned vehicle from $40 (which is $10 less than what it costs the city to have the car towed) to $500. They would have made thousands in the last week.
Snarkiness aside, perhaps the answer is a combination of both raising taxes and re-evaluating the current budget. It’s my guess (and I am new here, so correct me if I am wrong) that the Gateway Building was built as part of some plan to revitalize or attract business to the riverfront area. While I can understand the sentiment, the money going to maintain that building would go a long way towards helping reduce crime by getting rid of abandoned buildings on the south side, or toward getting rid of slum lords by having more building inspectors on the payroll. It seems to me as though the city has worked harder to improve buildings and services for tourists and maintained the status quo for the rest of the city.
The snow-removal fiasco is just the latest in a series of events that make it hard for my husband and I to justify remaining in the city of Peoria. I have been advised (by a number of people who live in the city) not to walk home from work in the evening for safety reasons, which has forced us to look at purchasing a second vehicle, something we chose the city to avoid. We drive more frequently and further to shop, with no end of that in sight. There are no incentives (that I am aware of) to renovating or restoring our 1930s-era house because we run a high risk of spending far more than what the house will be worth in the forseeable future.
This is anectotal, and far from empirical evidence of why the city needs to re-evaluate their current budget and maybe raise property taxes. However, it is an example of how the budgetary decisions made by the city council influence citizens and businesses within the city. I can understand why people (and thus economic growth) are leaving Peoria for communities like Dunlap and Washington. Places like the Gateway center cannot fix the infrastructure problems that make Peoria unnattractive as a place to live or do business.
In addition to the infrastructure problems, it seems as though Peoria falls short of attracting needed business and homebuyers in other ways as well. From what I understand about Peoria’s attempts to revitalize neighborhoods, it seems that the efforts always fall just shy of being effective. Perhaps it is a sign that instead of erring on the side of midwestern conservativism in such areas, Peoria might do well to try something radical. The definition of insanity is to keep
doing the same thing while expecting a different result. Even if the result of a radical change is failure, it is no worse than the money spent on failed revitalization in the past and may tell us more about what will work and what won’t.
Folks,
The City of Peoria receives only 11.352486055% of the property tax. Said another way. If your property tax bill is $2,000 for this year ———$227.05 of your $2,000 check was forwarded to the City of Peoria. The remaining $1772.95 is given to other taxing agencies like School District, County, Park District, Airport Authority, Library, Public Building Commission, Township, ICC , and CityLink mass transit. The City of Peoria has NO CONTROL over keeping taxes the same or preventing a tax increase when 11 % is our share.
And just for your general information of the $227.05 city’s share, $145 goes for pensions of retired City employees, Police, Fire, Public Works and all the rest. $72 goes to support the general fund of the City of Peoria. That $72 is then combined with sales tax, income tax, and other state and federal taxe revenues based on various funding formulas to pay for both the basic essential services the City must provide and the many services and programs that the CITY NEED NOT PROVIDE because they are either non essential or the responsibility of a different unit of government or in some cases like parking decks and Gateway Buildings, radio shops best left in the hands of the private sector.
If the majority of Council members could ever raise the level of busget discussions to what needs to be provided by the City and fund those properly, the citizens of Peoria would benefit. By merely not raising the 11% we merely continue to rob Peter to pay Paul………… and yout taxes increase because noone iss focusing on the spending of the other 89% of your real estate check.
I will take a deep breathe now
Bravo Gary! That is exactly why voters NEED to be as concerned who is running for Spring Elections 2007:
Peoria Park District – Central District Seats x 3 – Cummings, Petty and Budzinski with Budzinski not running
and
President Tim Cassidy (like an at-large position)
AND
Peoria Public School District #150 – District #2 Seats – Butler and Matheson with Matheson not running.
These entities are runaway trains spending tax dollars like water — Zoo Expansions and New Schools with no widespread community support … and so on….