Cut in Cook County sales tax rests on election

When Cook County Board President Todd Stroger's veto of a half-penny-on-the-dollar cut in the county sales tax was sustained this week, it apparently killed all hope of getting any sort of reduction done in time to take effect at the beginning of next year.

"I don't think that we'll see a move until we see another administration come forth," said Commissioner Liz Gorman of Orland Park.

A cut in the sales tax would have to be passed by Oct. 1 to be enacted Jan. 1, and the county board has only one more meeting before then, Sept. 16.

Stroger has previously said he might support a .25 percent rollback of the 1 percent increase that took effect just over a year ago, hiking the county sales tax to 1.75 percent. That would at least save Cook County consumers an estimated $100 million a year, if not the $200 million that would have resulted from a half-percent cut. But fresh from his victory Tuesday, when Chicago Commissioner Deborah Sims switched sides at the last moment to sustain Stroger's veto of a July vote to cut the sales tax a half penny on the dollar, he backtracked on even that.

"Things have changed," Stroger said. "It's not the same. I'd have to go to the finance team, and we'll look at the numbers, and we'll see if we can handle that. But we do know that we have some costs that weren't there last year when I proposed the budget, and one of them is $113 million for the pension fund."

Commissioner Larry Suffredin, of Evanston, said Stroger told him and Chicago Commissioner John Daley, chairman of the finance committee, that he'd veto even a .25 percent rollback.

"That's why we didn't go forward with it," Suffredin said. "If he was going to veto it, and Debbie Sims wasn't going to stay with us, we're just beating our heads against the wall.

"I was prepared to amend," he added. "The other commissioners said if he's going to veto it and we don't have the 14 votes to override, what are we doing?"

Opponents are already using the sales-tax hike against Stroger in his bid for re-election next year. He could opt to throw voters a bone by supporting a .25 percent rollback. Suburban Republicans like Gorman and Commissioner Timothy Schneider of Bartlett said they'd support that, distasteful as it might be to hand Stroger any sort of public-relations victory.

"A quarter-percent's better than nothing. But what does it really do?" Gorman said. "A half-percent I really felt was the ultimate compromise."

"I've been in favor of the entire repeal of the whole 1 percent," Schneider said. "We had reached an agreement to compromise at half a percent. To even go lower at this point, I would probably have to in the end support it, but it's not anything that I would advocate."

Gorman, Schneider and Suffredin all pointed to a DePaul University study released this week showing that sales are down at an unusually heavy rate in suburban Cook County. "The rise in sales tax rates is likely responsible for some of the decline," the study concluded.

"People are fleeing to other counties to purchase their goods," Schneider said. "That's had a detrimental effect to businesses in these areas."

Yet Stroger and his supporters counter with a doomsday scenario that county hospitals and clinics might have to close if the county ran into a deficit, even as hospital officials presented a budget this week slashing county financing 19 percent, thanks to other sources of funding.

"It's very discouraging," Gorman said. "It's pretty obvious that the funds aren't going to be needed. This is just to continue to build the patronage army, to pay higher costs for contracts, more expenses."

Besides, at this point, Stroger doesn't seem to think he needs to make any financial appeal to voters to win re-election next year. "I always think I have a great chance," he said, "because I tell the truth. I do what I say I'm going to do. I don't have to play politics."

"We'll just have to wait and see how the election turns out," Gorman said.