Brookfield’s wallet is $81,359 lighter, and Riverside’s mattress has 13,421 fewer dollars in it after they?”and nearly 400 other Illinois municipalities?”agreed to reimburse cellular phone service providers money from a utility tax found to be unconstitutional.
On Oct. 25,Judge Patrick McCann entered his final judgment against the municipalities in the Chancery Division of the Cook County Circuit Court. Towns ordered to reimburse the cellular providers have until Dec. 19 to comply.
Brookfield trustees on Nov. 28 voted to approve the payment, while Riverside trustees voted to approve their payment on Nov. 21.
“It’s a big chunk of money, but we’re just going to have to work around that figure,” said Brookfield Village Manager Riccardo Ginex, who added that the village’s 2005-06 budget did not plan for the settlement payment.
In all, Illinois municipalities owe just under $17 million to cellular firms, which won a class-action lawsuit seeking to recoup infrastructure maintenance fees paid to cities and villages throughout the state between Jan. 1, 1998 and Feb. 7, 2002.
Many towns in the state imposed the fee after then-Illinois Gov. Jim Edgar signed into law legislation that authorized towns in the state to impose a municipal infrastructure fee of 1 percent of the total charges of a telecommunications bill on telecommunications providers and their customers.
In 1998, PrimeCo Wireless filed a lawsuit declaring the infrastructure fee was unconstitutional, and the Illinois Supreme Court ruled in PrimeCo’s favor in 2001. The law was rescinded in February 2002.
Brookfield settled with PrimeCo along with four other towns in June 2004, and the village issued a check for $5,677 to PrimeCo as its payment as part of the settlement of that case. Riverside, along with another 219 Illinois towns, settled with PrimeCo in August 2005. Riverside’s payment of $310 to PrimeCo was approved by village trustees on Nov. 21.
Subsequent to the 2001 Illinois Supreme Court ruling on PrimeCo, other wireless providers filed a class-action lawsuit against Illinois municipalities to recoup infrastructure fees they had paid to municipalities during that same time period.
According to the terms of the settlement agreement, municipalities will pay 70 percent of the total fees they collected from wireless companies during 1998-2002.
While Brookfield’s $81,000 hit is not insignificant, it’s a lot less than other nearby towns. Cicero’s bill is $365,000, while Oak Park must cough up $168,400. Schaumburg, meanwhile, was hit with a whopping bill of $890,400.