DuPage fire districts put tax hike requests back on the ballot

Two fire districts in DuPage County are hoping history doesn't repeat itself when voters head to the polls in April.

Winfield and Wood Dale fire protection districts will once again ask voters for a property tax increase after similar referendum efforts were defeated in at least the last two elections.

Elsewhere in DuPage, voters will consider nonbinding questions on recreational marijuana sales in Roselle and a new village hall in Winfield.

Here's a look at those initiatives on April 6 ballots:

Wood Dale Fire

The Wood Dale Fire Protection District will come back to voters with a request to generate $1 million a year in additional revenue to maintain manpower levels, replace vehicles, make critical repairs to its two stations and fund rising operating costs.

The same measure was rejected by 56% of voters in November. The district asked voters for roughly $500,000 less than the amount sought in the previous referendum bid in the March 2020 election, when 60.6% of voters said "no." By scaling it down, the hope was that the tax increase would be more palatable to more voters.

"If we don't get it, the consequences are we're going to have to look at closing a station and laying off firefighters," Deputy Chief Patrick Johl said.

Johl and Fire Chief James Burke also lead the Itasca Fire Protection District. The neighboring agencies share chief officers as part of a series of cost-saving measures.

The firefighters' union also gave back concessions on salary increases and shortened the term of a collective bargaining agreement from four to three years in an effort to help the district "plan and prepare for not having these funds around," Johl said. "We sold our ladder truck because we couldn't afford to maintain that anymore."

But revenue isn't keeping up with the expenses of running the fire district, Johl said. The district, which is a separate taxing body from the city of Wood Dale, gets roughly 95% of its revenue from property taxes, with the rest coming from ambulance fees.

"We have insurance costs that go up 15% to 25% in a year," Johl said.

Due to financial constraints, the district has had to take out debt to finance repairs to its two fire stations, both built in the 1970s.

"We're not looking at getting new fire stations. We're not looking at getting brand new engines or adding staff with this referendum question," Johl said. "All we're trying to do is just maintain what we have right now and what we've had for the last 20 years."

The tax increase would cost the owner of a $200,000 home about $106 in additional property taxes annually.

Winfield Fire

The Winfield Fire Protection District will try again for a property tax increase to hire the personnel needed to reopen a shuttered station near Roosevelt and Winfield roads.

"The reason for the request remains the same, and that is to add the additional staffing and the infrastructure to support that staffing in terms of vehicles, equipment, facilities," Fire Chief Steve Evans said.

The station opened in the early 1980s but has sat dormant for years. Staffing the station with firefighter-paramedics would help reduce response times to emergency calls in the south end of the district, fire officials say.

Facing a rising call load, the district now has one engine company and one ambulance company on duty daily. From their downtown station, crews have to cross railroad tracks to get to the south side of the district's 13-square-mile coverage area. Train traffic sometimes creates delays in responding, Evans said.

"With the increasing call volume, we're requiring assistance from our neighboring agencies on a more frequent basis than we used to," he said.

The district also is seeking to make improvements to the vacant station and to replace an inoperable, 1990s-era fire engine parked inside.

If voters approve the request, estimates show the tax increase would generate $2,023,398 more a year for the district. The owner of a $200,000 house would pay roughly $188 in additional property taxes to the district.

Evans said the tax rate would still be less than the rate of neighboring fire protection districts.

Winfield

A ballot question asks Winfield voters for their opinion on a proposal to build a new village hall, but its advisory nature means officials will not have to follow the will of the voters.

It's part of a larger debate around development issues downtown as Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital aims to turn areas of the Town Center into a medical and commercial district.

The question is related to a proposal to construct a new village hall in another location to pave the way for more development near the Metra station. Board members have sparred over the financing for such a project.

Roselle

Two advisory questions will help gauge public sentiment on whether pot businesses could operate in town. The first question asks if adult-use recreational marijuana sales should be allowed in the village. The second asks if the village should permit the "craft growing, infusion, cultivation, processing, and transporting" of adult-use recreational marijuana.

Legal recreational sales in Illinois began more than a year ago.

• Daily Herald staff writers Scott C. Morgan and Trey Arline contributed to this report.