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Welcome to
Fighting to Cut Taxes and Government Excesses
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News Special Public Safety Report (Part 1) |
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Introduction
One of the primary missions of OUTRAGE is to provide the public with pertinent information on important issues facing our community to enable more informed decisions. To fulfill that objective, OUTRAGE is providing the following information.
This report is a comprehensive analysis of the history of crime, revenue, expenditures and resources of Kankakee County as it pertains to Public Safety. This information is provided only to inform the citizens of this community. OUTRAGE believes educated citizens ask more informed questions of their elected officials which, in turn, leads to better solutions to community problems.
Public Safety History
Currently, the County of Kankakee is studying public safety in Kankakee County. This study has been ongoing for several years, beginning in the early 1990s. Two Public Safety Committees have participated in this study.
First Public Safety Committee
The first Public Safety Committee consisted of members of the County Board, representatives from Law Enforcement (County Sheriff and Chief of Corrections) and Judiciary representatives (States Attorney and Judges). The original Public Safety Committee concluded that in order to cope with the existing rate of serious crime in the community, additional jail capacity was needed. This conclusion was reached after vastly increasing spending on the Probation and Court areas in order to reduce demands on the County Jail. The primary obstacle to increasing jail capacity is funding. The Public Safety Committee concluded that an additional revenue source was needed to finance an expansion of jail capacity.
Because voters had recently voted in Tax Caps the county's ability to generate additional revenue through traditional Real Estate Property Taxes was limited. Passage of Public Safety Sales Tax Law by the State Legislature offered a timely option for an additional revenue source to the County. The Public Safety Sales Tax Law permits a county to impose, with voter approval, an additional sales tax in the amount of 1/4%, 1/2%, 3/4%, or 1%. This tax would be in addition to the 6 1/4% currently paid on retail transactions in Kankakee. The first Public Safety Committee determined that the maximum (1%) should be requested from the voters.
1% Sales Tax
After studying the history of sales tax receipts of the county (see Graph below), OUTRAGE concluded that this tax rate would be excessive and generate far more revenue than was needed to solve the jail capacity problem. First year revenue was estimated to be approximately $1.6 million dollars. Over time this revenue stream would grow as a result of economic growth to generate an estimated $250,000,000 over twenty years. The projected cost of a new proposed jail was $24 million and with interest added would cost approximately $40 million over twenty years. The 1% tax referendum failed to pass overwhelmingly (72% to 28%).
Sales tax revenue to the county increased an average of 6.91% (more than double the rate of inflation) for the same time period. This is particularly worth noting because OUTRAGE'S projection of $250,000,000 in additional revenue being generated by a 1% sales tax increase over the next 20 years was based on an annual increase percentage of 5%.
The Second Public Safety Committee
Following the failure of the 1% Public Safety Tax referendum, a second Public Safety Committee was formed. The committee includes representatives from the County Board, Law Enforcement, Judiciary, as well as representatives from the public.
This committee concluded that the jail problem could be solved though a 1/4% sales tax and recommended that a referendum asking for 1/4% sales be presented to the voters. Again, the referendum was rejected by the voters (56% to 44%).
Since the failure of the second referendum, the committee has continued to work on finding a solution to the public safety needs of the county. As of August of 1999, the committee has come to believe that the voters will pass a Public Safety Tax if they are presented with a cost, site, and plans of a new jail. The Public Safety Committee has been working diligently to finalize these aspects for final presentation to the voters before the next referendum vote in March of 2000.
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P.O. Box 222
Bradley, IL 60915
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