The Village of Niles is extremely disappointed in Governor Rauner’s call to reduce the local share of the State income tax by 50%, which he announced in his Budget Address to the Illinois General Assembly February 18 in Springfield. Based on the numbers reported, a 50% cut in the municipal share of income taxes would result in a reduction of $1,475,248.50 to the Niles community. Cuts of these proportions will undoubtedly have significant negative impacts on local services. The local government and residents will suffer from these cuts and loss of local services. Residents should not be penalized for the State’s budget problem.
The $600 million cut will result in a loss of significant revenue for 273 municipalities in the Chicago metropolitan area and is very concerning for all local governments who are worried this will affect their abilities to provide essential services to residents. Municipal governments balance their budgets every year, providing for the health, safety and welfare for our residents and investing in infrastructure improvements. Local government is able to do all of that under the pressure of property tax limitations, declining revenues, unfunded state mandates, and pension benefit sweeteners sent out from the capitol building.
Now is not the time to penalize our villages for their good stewardship of the local share of state income taxes. Why should our hometowns suffer the drastic cuts being proposed against local governments when they didn’t create the problem?
Please take a stand against the unnecessary and unrealistic cuts that have been proposed against local governments, our community, and our residents. If we all act quickly, thousands of emails will be generated and our message will be sent loud and clear: don’t cut funding to local municipalities. Click the provided link below to go straight to the email site, which will automatically send an email to the Governor and each state senator and representative in that area, with a copy also going to the four legislative leaders and the sender. A hard copy addressed to the Governor can also be printed for postal mailing.
Thank you for your support.