If you live in Riverside, village staff are hosting a town hall next week to talk about a local referendum question that will be included on your ballot this election season.
On Tuesday, Oct. 15 at 7 p.m., at the Quincy Community Center, 43 E. Quincy St., Riverside will host the town hall to inform residents about the purpose of the referendum and field questions from residents about how its passage or failure could affect them, the village and its streets.
The referendum, which village staff and the board of trustees have discussed at meetings since June, would allow Riverside to collect a higher tax levy this year at the same time that the village pays off outstanding debt, should it pass. While residents’ property taxes will stay the same as last year, the higher one-time levy will allow the village to permanently set funds aside to improve its streets and bridges.
The expiring debt that the levy would replace is for the same purpose of repairing Riverside’s streets. In an interview with the Landmark Monday, Village President Douglas Pollock said Riverside had taken out 10-year bonds in 2004 and 2014 in order to repair the village’s roads.
“At least for the past 20 years, the village has paid for street maintenance, street resurfacing, etc., through three sources: motor fuel tax, home rule sales tax and bonds,” he said. “Bonds are, what, about 25% of that mix?”
Because municipal bonds operate similarly to loans, Riverside has had to pay interest and other fees on both sets of 10-year bonds it took out rather than putting that money directly into improving its streets.
“We have a one-time opportunity to take that same amount that people are paying in their taxes and transfer it to a street tax levy,” Pollock said. “Rather than borrowing money, we would just have that.”
In the same interview, Village Manager Jessica Frances said Riverside would collect about $260,000 each year going forward from property taxes that it would earmark for street improvements. Without the extra costs of the bonds, Pollock said Riverside could have redone “about three-quarters of a mile of a street” per 10-year set — for some areas of town, that’s an entire street or even more, he said.
If the referendum passes, Pollock said, Riverside could potentially improve its level of street repair and maintenance due to not having to pay back interest. But if Riverside voters oppose the referendum, Frances and Pollock said the consequences could be disastrous for the state of its roads, especially down the line.
“Right now, we have a good foundation for capital planning, anticipating that the referendum request is successful. If it’s not, then our 10-year plan that was presented to the board now becomes a 15-year plan because the resources aren’t there,” Frances said. “That means, if someone’s street is slated to be done now in 20 years, then it’s going to look more like 30 years, depending on resource availability.”
Outside of discovering a new source of funding specifically to repair streets, Frances said, Riverside will never be able to catch up to its original projections without the referendum passing.
“We’ll look at other opportunities for funding if the referendum fails. The board has some options, but none of them are as good as this option in terms of how much money we get, how it impacts taxpayers,” Pollock said. “The village board believes this is the most efficient way to address it, but it will be up to the voters.”
Clarifying the question
Pollock acknowledged that the state-mandated wording of the referendum question may trip up voters. Under Illinois law, a municipality may not raise its property tax levy by more than the Consumer Price Index’s inflation rate for the year, unless that number goes above 5%. Voters must give approval before the levy is raised over the 5% cap.
The referendum will ask voters to let Riverside raise its levy by up to 9.3% this year.
“The 9.3% that’s listed in the referendum is a maximum that includes the CPI modification, up to 5%, plus the 4.3%. That’s the levy,” Pollock said. He said the extra levy collected beyond the CIP rate, which is 3.4% this year, is worth the same amount residents were paying toward the expiring bond debt.
Pollock acknowledged that residents’ property taxes will go down this year if the referendum fails — at the expense of Riverside’s streets. Aside from that short-term gain, Pollock, who later clarified he was speaking for himself rather than on Riverside’s behalf as an elected official, said he had only heard one solid argument against the referendum: by voting for bonds every decade, residents can hold the village board accountable and decide whether Riverside should spend its money on street improvements.
“But in this case, where it’s an ongoing maintenance item — it’s not a building, where you spend the money and then your cost to maintain plummets. It’s like borrowing money to pay to your ComEd bill. You’re going to lose that game,” he said.
In terms of keeping an eye on the village board, Pollock said, “that accountability, I believe, is [already] there, especially in a small town like Riverside.”
“Let’s say the referendum gets approved. At any point, any group of residents in this village can put forward a referendum to overturn that. They can run for the village board and get elected, and they can abate that tax if they want,” he said. “Everyone on the board is a resident, just like everybody else. We’re imposing this on ourselves.”
Frances pointed to an internal map tracking Riverside’s street improvements since 2004, as well as the village’s consistent grant-seeking efforts, as “the epitome of accountability of what we do with village resources.”
“Every time we have an opportunity where we can seek those resources to get those streets resurfaced, we do, and we really try to maximize the dollar when we’re doing improvements and minimize the disruption,” she said. “Every time we’re touching a street, we’re not just touching what’s on top. We’re addressing any issues. If water mains are undersized, or if we need sewers for increased capacity, we’re looking at addressing all those different things, and we’re taking a really thoughtful approach.”
