Wilmette has joined the hundreds of municipalities across Illinois that have retained a 1% tax on groceries, and the Village Board’s Sept. 25 vote came just a week before the cutoff for the tax to continue without interruption.
The recent flurry of votes by municipalities across the northern suburbs and beyond stems from Gov. JB Pritzker’s February 2024 proposal to repeal the 1% grocery tax, with an effective date of Dec. 31, 2025. Revenue from the tax has flowed to local governments.
Ultimately, however, municipalities could decide to impose their own 1% tax on groceries. Those municipalities had to file with the state by Oct. 1, so that a 1% tax would continue on and after Jan.1.
As of Friday, 645 municipalities have decided to create their own version of the tax, according to the Illinois Municipal League.
Yet the Wilmette Village Board’s 4-2 vote came with an unusual twist: The village is mulling relief for some residents.
“The Finance Committee of the Village Board will be studying various options, including a vehicle sticker program, to reduce the cost of living in Wilmette for lower income residents,” Village Manager Michael Braiman wrote in an email to Pioneer Press. “This review will take place over the next several months.”
Similar to other municipalities’ wheel taxes, the vehicle license sticker applies to all Illinois-registered vehicles with Wilmette addresses. A regular passenger vehicle sticker goes for $80.
It’s unclear what a sticker rebate might look like. Trustee Steve Leonard, who argued in favor of imposing the grocery tax, urged the village to create a public-private partnership to fund a relief program, according to a video recording of the Sept. 25 meeting.
Leonard and other supporters of the 1% tax said that by eliminating it, the village would have to increase its property tax levy to cover the estimated $600,000 generated every year by the existing grocery tax.
They also cited the widespread adoption of grocery taxes in the northern suburbs, pointing to people who shop at the many supermarkets just outside Wilmette.
“For lower-income and fixed-income Wilmette residents who shop at grocery stores outside of Wilmette, we’ll be hitting them with a double whammy,” Trustee Michael Lieber said in the meeting. “We’ll be hitting them with higher property taxes while they continue to pay that same amount in grocery taxes. We’ll be hurting the very people who I think all of us want to help.”
And some proponents pointed to shoppers who travel to Wilmette, as they would bring in tax revenues from outside the village if it imposed the grocery tax.
Meanwhile, Trustee Gina Kennedy pointed to Wilmette’s financial health and urged the village to hold off on the grocery tax. She also cited the reams of public input opposing the tax.
If the revenue were truly necessary, she added, the tax would still remain “highly regressive.”
“This is not a tax on discretionary expenditures,” she said. “This is a tax on necessary expenditures.”
Kennedy and Trustee Mark Steen voted against the tax. Trustee Gerry Smith was absent.
On Sunday afternoon the Jewel-Osco on Green Bay Road, one of two Jewels in the village, bustled with grocery shoppers, many from Evanston. The neighboring city lies just a few blocks to the south.
Alan Saleski, who said he’d lean toward supporting the 1% tax, ranks among the Evanston shoppers. A big draw for him? The large receptacle for used plastic bags at the Jewel’s entrance.
Eric Herndon and Tanya Lown pushed a shopping cart toward the sliding doors. Herndon, of Wilmette, said he’d support the tax but critiqued both sides’ arguments. He also decried Illinois’ broader financial health and its pension-funding quagmire.
The rhetoric around such fiscal policy serves to “bamboozle people,” he added.
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Upon hearing about the tax, however, one shopper from Evanston said she might start shopping more in Evanston. Evanston, too, approved a 1% grocery tax, with its City Council overriding a veto by Mayor Daniel Biss.
“I would rather give it to Evanston,” said Laura Romisher, citing the broader range of people who live there.