Government should find efficiencies

In your Sept. 16 article entitled "DuPage Budget Picture Rosier", you mention that our county board president feels the additional $47 million in sales tax revenue will solve for now the DuPage County budget crisis.

But, is the increased revenue real? The sales tax increase may not be real. The increase in the tax may well be offset from slower sales. There are fewer sales at the auto dealers, the mall vacancies are rising and sales are dropping. Overall retail sales are dropping. Internet sales that pay no sales tax are on the increase.

Property taxes should be dropping soon based on lower market values. Overall market valuations have dropped more than 8 percent this year, and the bottom has not been reached yet.

The inefficiencies of governments within DuPage County are too numerous to even begin to count. It starts with the property tax, where bills have between 12 and over 15 different taxing entities. We have school districts with just one school in them. Our roads are maintained by the state, county, township, forest preserve, park district, and village/city departments. We have Township and County tax officials.

One answer to the budget crisis is to start thinking outside the box. Shrink the government structure. Streamline administrative costs. Begin by combining certain tasks such as fire, police, road maintenance, park districts/forest preserve and school districts to make them more efficient. This process has already saved millions in places like Broward County, Fla. and Fairfax County Va. Perhaps, with caution, you can privatize some government functions for better cost control and efficiency.

For now, DuPage County, all of its communities and taxing authorities should build a reserve to be able to get through the shortfalls that are coming. All entities should look at their spending and say, "Are we spending the budgeted amounts as efficiently as private business would?"

Robert H. Cohen

West Chicago