DuPage workers to rally for tax

DuPage County employees say they are overworked, underpaid and fed up.

A rally is planned for noon today outside the Wheaton courthouse to fight further cuts in criminal justice fields.

The DuPage County Board is considering a Feb. 5 referendum asking voters to increase the sales tax a quarter-cent, which could generate more than $40 million annually to fund public safety.

At the same time, the board also may enact a $50 vehicle sticker fee in 2008 as a stopgap measure to avoid a "doomsday budget" that would result in 235 layoffs, mostly in law enforcement. Such a fee could net an estimated $25 million.

The thinking is that if primary voters approve the sales-tax proposal, the vehicle sticker would be eliminated before it goes into effect. The board meets this morning, but a special Thursday night meeting also is planned.

"We do have a doomsday approaching," said county board member Patrick O'Shea, the finance chairman. "We do not want to cut necessary services. The public has to recognize these services already have been cut to the bone."

DuPage State's Attorney Joe Birkett organized the rally in support of the tax plan. Planners argue the sales-tax hike is more palatable because an estimated 40 percent of local sales tax dollars comes from non-DuPage County residents who shop here.

Birkett has lobbied for the tax hike before, but it fell on deaf ears with the county board and was never posed to voters. Instead, leaders had hoped the Illinois General Assembly would bail them out with legislation enabling the county to enact a cigarette tax, but that option looks highly unlikely.

"We want to make sure the county board gets the message," Birkett said of the rally. "They have an obligation to fund public safety. We're united and we're not backing down. We should not be here. They should have resolved this years ago."

So, how did a once fiscally sound county government get into such a mess?

It depends on whom you ask.

Leaders said revenues in hard economic times have failed to keep pace with rising expenses, such as state mandated projects. The county also no longer can tap into a $15 million annual water commission check it received for five years.

But critics argue the budget crisis is a result of fiscal mismanagement under Board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom's leadership.

Officials repeatedly reduced the property tax levy while spending down millions in reserves, approving large construction projects and doling out pay raises for themselves and department heads, as well as an expensive employee buyout program.

The rally begins at noon today in the county government complex courtyard, at County Farm and Manchester roads in Wheaton.