Tiny Volo looks to join big towns with home rule

Normally, it takes a population of 25,000 for a community to achieve home rule status.

But, Volo -- with only 1,600 residents -- doesn't want to wait that long.

Village officials are proposing to fast-track the process by asking residents to grant home-rule status through a referendum on the ballot Feb. 5.

Mayor Burnell Russell said being a home-rule community will allow Volo to increase sales tax dollars needed to upgrade streets, sewers and water lines in preparation for the onslaught of commercial development projected along routes 12, 60 and 120.

"We have the roads here to dramatically increase the amount of commercial we have," Russell said. "But those roads will need to be improved for safety while this is going on, and that's expensive."

According to the Illinois Constitution, home-rule status gives a village more power to regulate local affairs.

One of those powers, under the legislation, is the ability for a community to raise taxes, including a sales tax.

It also gives village boards the power to raise its property tax above the state imposed tax cap.

Russell admitted the home-rule powers could scare some voters but said he has no intention of raising property taxes over tax cap rates.

"Out of our $1.35 million budget, we only get $118,000 from property tax," he said. "We don't need more than that from residents. We need an increase in sales tax to get roads fixed."

Raising the sales tax by 1 percentage point, Russell said, would double the amount of money the village collects annually from retailers.

The sales tax in the village is now 6.5 percent, he said, but 5.5 percent goes to the state and county.

If the request is approved, the sales tax would rise to 7.5 percent and the village would keep 2 percent.

Volo has been contemplating asking residents for home-rule status for five years. The issue surfaced in 2002 when officials considered putting the home-rule question on the ballot to increase developer impact fees.

The board never put the request to voters, Russell said, but the idea didn't go away.

"There are a lot of good reasons why we should do it," he said. "It doesn't solve every problem we will be facing with the commercial we are bringing in, but it will definitely help us a lot."