Gov. George Ryan signed a bill Wednesday expanding aid to low-income households for fast-rising heating bills. But, like Mayor Richard M. Daley in Chicago, he rejected the idea of lifting the state’s 5 percent tax on natural gas.
“Right now, I don’t think there’s a need to take the sales tax off,” Ryan said, “and I’m not sure what that means to an individual homeowner.”
Daley has resisted pressure to use proceeds of the windfall from the city’s 8 percent tax on gas bills to help Chicagoans cope with high prices, even as he has urged Peoples Energy Corp. to ease the burden on its customers.
The law Ryan signed, a day after it was approved by state lawmakers, raises the maximum income allowed for households eligible for heating subsidies–a change expected to bring cash assistance to 142,000 more households. Under the new law, households are eligible if their income is no more than 50 percent above the poverty line, or $2,130 per month for a family of four. On average, participants will get $450 this winter, Ryan said.
“We all know about these horrendous price increases,” Ryan said at a ceremony at his Springfield office. “I think it will be an effective tool for helping low-income families and seniors on fixed incomes making ends meet.”
In Chicago, Daley proposed that the city add $1.4 million to subsidy programs administered by the state and by the Salvation Army to help defray the cost of gas for poor and elderly residents.
Peoples Energy, whose top executives have come under fire for failing to show up at a City Council hearing Tuesday about the surge in natural gas prices, announced late Wednesday that it would commit an additional $250,000 to the Share the Warmth program administered by the Salvation Army in a match of the city’s contribution. The company now will provide a total of $500,000 for the program this year.
Separately, the council approved a new $2.75 million allocation for the city’s Emergency Housing Assistance Program, bringing to $8.25 million the amount available in the program to qualified homeowners for new furnaces and other energy-saving improvements.
Illinois residents seeking information on the state’s Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program may call 800-252-8643 (the phone number as published has been corrected in this text). In Chicago, the first in a series of Home Heating Assistance Fairs will be held Saturday at the Humboldt Park Field House.
