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Wayne considers cuts after voters spike hike

Wayne officials are expected to begin looking at cuts to the village's operating budget after primary voters rejected a proposed tax hike aimed at filling a $350,000 budget gap.

"We were hopeful it was going to pass, so we did not have a contingency plan already in place. We're going to have to get one," Treasurer Bill Sheehan said Wednesday.

The 17-cent hike to the village property tax rate was defeated by a margin of more than 2-to-1, with just 202 votes of support in Kane and DuPage counties and 454 votes against, according to unofficial results in all eight precincts.

While Sheehan said officials still want to research whether the low turnout primary vote was representative of the community as a whole, "my present feeling is that it probably was."

The roughly $350,000 deficit is Wayne's first major budget hurdle since 1982, when the village established its own property tax, Sheehan said.

Blamed on declining revenue and development in the economic downturn, the gap could possibly be filled by reducing police patrols and adjusting road maintenance schedules, among other options.

"We're looking at deficits already, and they're going to continue," he said. "We've got to do something. It's not a case where we can sit back and wait a couple of years."

A successful rate hike would have amounted to a yearly increase of about $230 for the owner of a $400,000 home, officials said.

Sheehan stressed that decisions on how to proceed will be up to the village board. He said the village received "little" negative feedback on the referendum from constituents before the election.

"Maybe we didn't get our message across to voters," he said. "If so, we may have to try again."