A Kane County Board committee was all talk and nearly no action Thursday when it came to asking for tax increases to pay for an addition to the chronically overcrowded jail.
After hours of discussion, the room fell eerily silent when it was time for an actual vote on whether to recommend a pair of referendum proposals asking for tax hikes to build and operate the addition.
Everybody, it seems, favors building a 576-bed addition to the jail on Fabyan Parkway in Geneva. But nobody in Republican-dominated Kane wants to lead with their nose on an issue that could add as much as $107 to the average taxpayer’s real estate bill.
Finally, St. Charles Republican Karen Steve broke the awkward silence to make a motion for one of the tax hikes, “just to get it on the table.”
“Next week is really a critical turning point,” Steve said. “We are asking a lot of the taxpayers. People want to be tough on crime, but there’s a cost associated with it. Are we willing to pay that price?”
The committee finally took a voice vote to recommend that the County Board pass both proposals.
If it does, voters on Nov. 7 will be asked two questions. In one, the county asks permission to issue $51 million in bonds and equip an addition to the current 240-bed facility. The other seeks as much as a 10-cent hike in the county’s tax rate to pay the estimated $7.2 million annual cost of operating the expanded jail, which would open late in 1999.
In addition to the jail proposals, the committee recommended to the full board a 2-cents-per-gallon increase in the county’s gas tax.
That would bring Kane’s allotment to the full 4 cents allowed by Illinois law and add $3 million a year for county highway projects. The increase could hit the pumps before the end of the year.
The gas tax increase might allow the county to redirect some of its other revenue from the highway department to other needs, said Board Chairman Warren Kammerer (R-St. Charles). For instance, it might help fund construction of a new county youth home, expected to cost $11.3 million.
The two jail-addition tax increase proposals could add as much as 21 cents per $100 of equalized assessed valuation, according to bond underwriters from Chicago-based William Blair & Company. The bond issue could hike tax bills by as much as $65.
But county officials could try to soften the operations tax bite by invoking newly enacted state legislation allowing counties to increase their sales taxes by as much as 1 cent for public safety issues. The law takes effect Jan. 1.
If that happened, Kane could ask voters to approve the bond issue in November, and then go back to taxpayers, perhaps as early as March, with a 1/2-cent sales-tax increase proposal.
“These are just options,” Kammerer said. “The board hasn’t decided.”
And the board may not decide Tuesday. Kammerer conceded the 26 County Board members will be chewing over a good deal of complicated paperwork and a decision could be pushed back to a special session sometime later this month. Referendum proposals for the November ballot must be completed by Sept. 6.
Although some board members expressed concern that tax-weary voters might be put off by both the enormity of the bond issue and by confusing language on the ballot initiative, Kammerer said the jail addition is vital to Kane’s future.
“There are people getting shot every day in Kane County,” said Kammerer, who added that Kane’s crime rate is the highest in Illinois outside of Cook County. “I don’t want anyone in Kane County to be fearful of walking out on the streets any place and I don’t think we have that now.”
