Déjà vu. DeKalb County Board is considering placing a proposed sales tax increase on the ballot next spring, for…an improved jail.
“What I plan to do is on the county board meeting on Dec. 17 is to review where we’re at with the jail expansion and some options for where we might go, one of those options being whether we go for referendum,” [County Administrator Gary] Hanson said.
Never mind that they’ve told us ad nauseam about how the tipping fees from the landfill expansion will pay for the jail expansion.
What changed?
[The landfill tipping] fees are estimated to total about $2.2 million a year, with about $1.9 million being available for the jail expansion project.
But that also is what the county would lose if Sycamore’s sales tax agreements with two airline fuel-purchasing companies collapses under a legal challenge from the Regional Transportation Authority, which is arguing that the companies don’t actually buy the fuel in Sycamore.
Boo-effin’ hoo.
When the airlines set up shop in Sycamore about 10 years ago, it doubled the county’s annual sales tax take from $2 million to $4 million.
Did you hear all the discussion back then about how to use the extra $2 million? Me neither. The jail expansion project was apparently not important enough to get a piece of the windfall.
And windfall it most certainly is: So much money was coming from just two companies, and they made it clear during the referendum discussion of 2006 that they would leave for cheaper pastures if the county tried to apply any sales tax increases to them. They have no loyalty to DeKalb County.
Nevertheless, instead of setting aside a stream that — clearly — could disappear at a moment’s notice, the county quietly absorbed the extra revenue into operations faster than a Bounty® brand towel.
Do we really want to reward this kind of shortsightedness?