GOP Allege Democrat Budget Cuts Local Government Funding
Rep. Jehan Gordon-Booth (D-Peoria) defends the state budget proposal early Saturday morning. (Photo: State Journal-Register)
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While much of the conversation in budget debates revolved around how much local governments would receive under the Local Government Distributive Fund. Local governments wanted an increase to 10% of income tax collections under the new budget.
Instead, they received a marginal increase from around 6% to around 6.2%.
But in debate of the budget early Saturday, House Republicans pointed out what they believe to be a $700 million cut to the money local governments and schools receive in the Personal Property Replacement Tax. PPRT funds are sent to local governments to replace money lost when the state banned local governments from charging personal property taxes on businesses.
Republicans allege that’s a 15.5% reduction in PPRT revenue for local governments around the state.
House Republicans did not provide their list to me yesterday, but in the list of funding cuts they alleged during debate early Saturday, millions would be lost from local governments and school districts.
$2.6 million from Winnebago County government
$2.5 million from Moline schools
$2.4 million from Rock Island schools
$1.8 million from Proviso Township schools
$1.8 million from Danville schools
$1.5 million from Champaign schools
$900,000 from the City of Danville
“This really is going to effect a lot of our communities,” House GOP Leader Tony McCombie said early Saturday morning.
But the LGDF issue pressures still exist.
Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara criticized the new LGDF levels to the Rockford Register Star.
"These are our income tax dollars we are fighting to bring back to our community," McNamara said during a news briefing. "In my opinion, the state has stolen those dollars."
McNamara has long been pushing to increase LGDF to 10%.
"This is about priorities and fulfilling a promise in an agreement that was made with municipalities and, more importantly, residents who make up those municipalities," McNamara said. "We obviously provide far more services and far more direct services than the state does. Those dollars need to come to municipalities so that we can continue to provide critical core services."
Democrats we spoke to say Republicans aren’t telling the whole story about PPRT. We’re told by some Democrats those dollars were going to decrease anyway in the fall. Though, we won’t know for sure until local governments are advised of their PPRT receipts in the fall.
