March 08--A Northwest Side alderman is already looking at changing Mayor Rahm Emanuel's just-instituted garbage pick-up fee to try to raise more money to pay for property tax rebates he has proposed for lower-income Chicagoans.
Ald. Proco "Joe" Moreno, 1st, called Monday for a City Council hearing on his plan for tax rebates for households that earn less than $100,000. Moreno introduced the idea last fall to try to blunt the impact of Emanuel's record $543 million property tax increase.
Moreno's tax rebate could cost the city as much as $40 million if everybody who's eligible takes advantage, though it's likely many won't. He said the council needs to act soon rather than count on the gridlocked state legislature to provide the tax breaks the mayor is looking for there.
With the cash-strapped city watching its bottom line, Moreno said a possible source of revenue would be dumping the controversial $9.50-per-month garbage pick-up fee that Emanuel included in his 2016 budget, an additional cost that will start showing up on April water bills for buildings with four units or fewer.
Instead, Moreno said the city could enact a "pay-as-you-throw" system that would charge people based on how much trash they toss out. Recycling would be free, but Moreno predicted his idea would initially bring in more than the $62.7 million the $9.50-a-month fee is expected to collect.
And Moreno said Emanuel could also use about $6 million expected to be collected from new taxes the mayor wants on smokeless tobacco, cigars and roll-your-own cigarettes. The mayor wants the money to go to education programs, but Moreno argued "property tax relief is right there with education for our middle- and low-income families."
Rather than a rebate, the mayor wants to increase the city homeowner exemption of $7,000 to a level sufficient to ensure the property tax hike does not affect the owner of a home worth $250,000 or less. But that would require a change in state law. City Finance Department spokeswoman Molly Poppe said the administration is still working to get that passed, but is preparing for a rebate program like Moreno's as a back-up plan.
"While the City continues to work in Springfield to pass the doubling of the homeowners' exemption, we are also aware of the logjam and current unwillingness of the governor to put policy ahead of politics, which is why the administration is also exploring with (the) City Council balanced property tax rebate proposals that minimize the property tax increase on working- and middle-class families," Poppe said in an email.
Poppe declined to comment on Moreno's specific revenue ideas.
jebyrne@tribpub.com
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