The River Forest Village Board unanimously passed a resolution March 9 opposing Gov. Bruce Rauner’s “turnaround budget,” which reduces the income tax revenue of municipalities but increases funding for schools.
The resolution was passed at the request of the Illinois Municipal League and West Central Municipal Conference, which have asked each of their member municipalities to approve similar measures in an effort to fight Rauner’s plan.
“We get the double whammy, because they’re not going to touch police and fire pensions,” said Village President Catherine Adduci. “If they freeze property taxes and then they cut this, it’s almost a double double whammy for the municipalities. For the schools, it could be a win situation for them.”
The governor is trying to sell his funding package as a way to put the state on a sustainable funding path. The funding plan includes eliminating a $6.2 billion deficit, paying down a $500 million funding backlog to schools and increasing kidnergarten through 12th-grade spending by $300 million.
But municipalities like River Forest say it comes at their expense. Officials have calculated that the loss for River Forest would be about $553,000 in annual revenue.
According to the resolution, “…such an adverse impact would not allow for continuity of quality local government services that River Forest has long been known to provide for its citizenry.”
Rauner proposed reducing the Local Government Distributive Fund by 50 percent, but did not offer a corresponding reduction in unfunded mandates, the resolution said.
Village Board member Carmela Corsini said the state needs to implement sustainable reform in pensions, workers’ compensation and unfunded mandates.
“At some point, you have to say, ‘Here’s the give and take, OK.’ You’re going to reduce it here, but you’re going to have to give us the ability to take the pensions out of the cap or something creative,” she said. “It’s almost ultimately going to be the taxpayers who’s going to pay for the issues, for the budget issues that they have.”
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“I think everyone recognizes the state of Illinois has a budget problem. They’ve got some serious problems they’ve got to address,” said River Forest Village Administrator Eric J. Palm. “If the governor says, ‘OK, well listen, we’re going to cut revenue but here are all the ways we can save you money’ in the concrete — not supposals — I think a lot of municipalities would sit down and roll their sleeves up and say, ‘We’ll see if we can get it done.'”
Rebecca R. Bibbs is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.