Wilmette approves 1% grocery tax but considers relief options

Wilmette joined the hundreds of municipalities in Illinois who have kept a 1% tax on the grocery store, and the September 25 vote of the village council came a week before the threshold so that the tax continues without interruption.

The recent wave of votes by municipalities through the North suburbs and beyond comes from the Governor JB Pritzker’s proposal in February 2024 aimed at repealing the 1%grocery tax, with a date of entry into force of December 31, 2025. Tax revenues have passed to local governments.

In the end, however, the municipalities could decide to impose their own tax at 1% on the grocery store. These municipalities had to deposit with the State by October 1, so a 1% tax will continue and after January 1.

Friday, 645 municipalities decided to create their own version of the tax, according to the municipal league of Illinois.

However, the 4-2 vote of the Wilmette Village Board came with an unusual turn: the village reflects on certain residents.

“The village finance committee will study various options, including a vehicle sticker program, to reduce the cost of living in Wilmette for low-income residents,” wrote Village Michael Braiman in an email at Pioneer Press. “This review will take place in the coming months.”

Similar to taxes on the wheels of other municipalities, the vehicle license sticker applies to all Illinois vehicles with Wilmette addresses. An ordinary passenger vehicle sticker costs $ 80.

It is not known what could look like a sticker. The trustee Steve Leonard, who pleaded in favor of the taxation of the grocery tax, urged the village to create a public-private partnership to finance a rescue program, according to a video recording of the meeting of September 25.

Leonard and other 1% tax supporters said that by eliminating it, the village should increase its property tax to cover the estimated $ 600,000 generated each year by the existing grocery tax.

They also cited the generalized adoption of grocery taxes in the northern suburbs, pointing to people who buy the many supermarkets just outside Wilmette.

“For residents of Wilmette with low -income and fixed income income that buy in grocery stores outside Wilmette, we strike them with a double blow,” said trustee Michael Lieber at the meeting. “We hit them with higher property taxes as they continue to pay the same amount in taxes on grocery stores. We will injure the very people that I think we all want to help. ”

And some supporters have underlined the buyers who go to Wilmette because they would bring tax revenues from outside the village if it imposed the grocery tax.

Meanwhile, the trustee Gina Kennedy underlined Wilmette’s financial health and urged the village to hang on to the grocery tax. She also cited the public’s contribution trains opposing the tax.

If the income was really necessary, she added, the tax would remain “very regressive”.

“It is not a tax on discretionary expenses,” she said. “This is a tax on the necessary expenses.”

Kennedy and the trustee Mark Steen voted against the tax. The trustee Gerry Smith was absent.

Sunday afternoon, Jewel-Osco on Green Bay Road, one of the two jewels of the village, animated by grocery buyers, a lot of Evanston. The neighboring town is located a few blocks in the south.

Alan Saleski, who said he would look to support the 1%tax, ranks among the buyers of Evanston. A big draw for him? The large receptacle for used plastic bags at the entrance to the jewel.

Eric Herndon and Tanya Lown pushed a basket to the sliding doors. Herndon, from Wilmette, said that he would support the tax but criticized the arguments of the two parties. He also decried the broader financial health of Illinois and his bourber of pension financing.

Rhetoric around such a fiscal policy is used for “people of the bamboozle”, he added.

However, after hearing the tax, an Evanston buyer said that she could start making more shopping in Evanston. Evanston also approved a 1%grocery tax, with its municipal council replacing a veto by the mayor Daniel Biss.

“I prefer to give it to Evanston,” said Laura Romerher, citing the wider range of people who live there.