Carpentersville OKs gas tax hike

Motorists will now pay a little extra to fill up their gas tanks in Carpentersville.

The village board on Tuesday approved a 2 cent per gallon motor fuel tax that village officials say will help pay for needed infrastructure repairs and other projects.

The gas hike will take effect May 1.

Trustees voted 5 to 2 in favor of the tax, with Trustees Paul Humpfer and Judy Sigwalt dissenting.

The discussion was continued from the Feb. 19 meeting because only three of the four members present indicated they would support the ordinance. Though a vote was not taken, an ordinance requires four votes to prevail.

But the reprieve was brief.

While a majority of the board called the 2-cent hike "fair," Humpfer and Sigwalt argued against imposing another tax on residents already struggling to make ends meet.

"I am not against fixing streets," said Sigwalt, who said numerous residents had voiced their opposition to the tax. "I am against another tax. It's not just a 2-cent tax. It's another tax on all the other taxes the residents are seeing."

Humpfer, who is chairman of the village board's audit and finance commission, supported the tax proposal at the commission level, but changed his vote Tuesday.

"When I started looking at this, it's not the right way to do it," Humpfer said. "We need to look inward ... We need to be frugal and look at places where we can cut spending money."

Those who supported the tax, though, said the tax is a way to take some of the burden of raising revenue off of property owners.

"This is a worthwhile tax," Trustee Linda Ramirez-Sliwinski said. "It is a user tax. People who are using roads, driving on them, are paying this tax."

Carpentersville is the first home-rule community in Kane County to impose its own tax.

Kane County doubled its gas tax to 4 cents per gallon in February 2007.

Officials in Carpentersville estimate the tax would generate about $250,000 a year, which will help repay a $10 million bond the village is expected to issue this spring for street and sidewalk repairs.

The bond may also be used for sewer and water line replacement as well as the construction of a new public works facility and renovation of the village's fire stations.

Debt repayments would cost the village about $800,000 a year, Village President Bill Sarto said.

Village Finance Director Lisa Happ said though the tax is an unpopular one, it is the most practical option.

"This is not a popular avenue," Happ said. "But it better matches up with the purpose of what the taxes will be collected for."

Previously, a real estate transfer tax was defeated by referendum, while a food and beverage tax was discouraged due to new nonsmoking laws.