DuPage transportation budget shrinks

The DuPage County Transportation Department's proposed budget calls for $10 million less than last year.

While pleased with this budgetary development, some board members were puzzled about the lack of funds from last year's sales tax increase being used to fund transportation projects this year.

"That money was for transportation and public safety," board member James Healy said. "I guess it's all going to public safety."

The quarter-percent sales tax increase enacted last year is expected to generate $41 million for the coming fiscal year that starts Dec. 1. It was granted to suburban Chicago counties as part of a deal to help fund the Regional Transportation Authority.

The legislature stipulated the money generated from the tax could only be used for transportation projects and public safety costs. DuPage was on the verge of laying off hundreds of public safety employees without the influx of funds. However, the county didn't need all the money generated by the tax to stave off the personnel cuts.

This year, the board budgeted $5.2 million from the additional sales tax for transportation projects. At Tuesday's transportation committee hearing, Transportation Director John Kos presented his budget proposal that showed no funds from the additional sales tax. Kos said money from that fund was not part of board Chairman Robert Schillerstrom's budget proposal.

Fred Backfield, the county's chief financial officer, said $2 million is being set aside in Schillerstrom's budget proposal to cover borrowing for road projects in the coming years. Schillerstrom proposes to borrow about $40 million for five road projects and use $2 million of the additional sales tax revenue to pay off the debt over the course of the next 30 years.

"We're going to borrow after we just raised the sales tax?" asked board member Jim Zay. "Out of $41 million we're getting next year, we're going out to bond and encumber us into the future."

Healy had sought to permanently earmark a percentage of the additional sales tax funds specifically for transportation projects during last year's budget hearings, but his proposal failed to garner support and it died without a vote.

"I knew this was going to happen," he said after Tuesday's meeting. "It's unfortunately one of the times I wish I was dead wrong."