Kane County will consider 4-cent per gallon gas tax increase
Kane County will start exploring options to increase its local gas tax, as officials learned Tuesday there are $163 million in projects on the county's five-year transportation plan with no set funding.
Members of the county board's transportation committee noted neighboring Lake and DuPage counties raised the county portion of the gas tax in their territories after state legislation in 2019 that allowed counties to charge up to 8 cents a gallon. Lake County officials authorized their first 4-cent per gallon gas tax last week. DuPage County officials doubled their gas tax to 8 cents a gallon in November.
Those increases came on top of the 19-cent gas tax increase by the state in 2019 to fund a $33 billion transportation program. The state legislation also tied future state gas tax increases to inflation two years ago.
Three Republicans on the Kane County Board committee, Mike Kenyon, David Brown and Drew Frasz, led the discussion Tuesday on doubling the county's gas tax from 4 cents per gallon to 8 cents. Kenyon noted Lake County's decision, which led Brown to note the five-year forecast for gas tax revenue in Kane County envisions it staying at about $9.3 million to $9.6 million for each of those years.
Brown asked about the possible negative impact of electric vehicles on that projection.
"We've already seen (the gas tax) plateau," said KDOT Deputy Director Tom Rickert. "It is a concern with electric vehicles that one of our primary revenue sources would start to lessen."
Brown responded that he supports the county's gas tax as a user fee. He said he'd be in favor of considering a county gas tax increase.
Committee Chairman Drew Frasz said the board could raise the county gas tax, but that's not going to stop electric-powered vehicles from using local roads without paying the tax that funds their upkeep. Frasz indicated he'd favor some way to make owners of electric vehicles pay more of their fair share.
As of Jan. 1, 2020, the annual registration fee for electric vehicles increased from $17.50 to $251 in at least a partial response to the problem highlighted by Rickert and Frasz. At the time, there were about 18,000 electric vehicles registered in Illinois.
The transportation committee will spend its April and May meetings investigating the costs and benefits of increasing the county's gas tax before bringing the issue to the larger county board.
The county's five-year, $214 million transportation plan includes work ranging from road resurfacing to major projects to build the Randall Road interchange over I-90, improve the Randall Road intersection with Highland Avenue in Elgin, and an Orchard Road fence repair project in Aurora, among others.