At the Monday meeting of the Burr Ridge Village Board, the mayor and trustees approved measures to bring in additional revenue through building permit rate hikes while considering the impact of a likely tax shortfall in the middle of the FY 2025 budget year.
Both the permit hike and the revenue shortfall seemed inevitable. First, the building permit fees haven’t been raised in nearly 20 years and are now lower than the cost to inspect building projects, not to mention well below fees in surrounding towns.
The new rate hikes will go into effect May 1 and the permits fees should cover inspection costs while still keeping prices competitive with other areas. Besides raising various permit fees — a complete list of which can be found on the village’s website — the village will also now charge $200 for each subsequent inspection after the third inspection.
The cost of the first inspection will not change, as it currently costs a flat rate of $100 for all inspections. The second inspection will now also cost $100 and then the village will charge $200 for each inspection after that. In addition, each resubmitted plan will add on additional costs from $100 for residential to $300 for non-residential resubmissions.
In total, the village is expected to bring in $110,000 in additional revenue through the new fee structure.
However, the tax shortfall could be the bigger issue and the building fee rates do not address that. As it is, the state seems poised to end its 1 % grocery tax — an unpopular consumer tax on food that nevertheless proved lucrative to the cities and towns that kept the revenue. For Burr Ridge, the loss of the tax will mean a loss of $200,000 in annual income, though the hit won’t be noticed for months. Notice of that loss came after the initial FY 2025 budget was printed for initial board consideration and so while trustees were made aware of the shortfall, the budget presented earlier this month did not include that loss.
On Monday the trustees had an opportunity to discuss the shortfall further, but without any clear sense of financial impact or any immediate solutions to soften the blow either from state tax disbursements or from local resources, the board did nothing more than merely discuss the shortfall during its planned budget discussion.
Village Administrator Evan Walter said the state will likely do away with the tax in July and even then, Mayor Gary Grasso said the village won’t notice a drop in revenue immediately.
“It’s the second fiscal quarter when we’ll get a better idea of how this is affecting us,” Grasso said. “And Evan will make that report.”
Grasso seemed to understand the need to do away with the tax, calling it regressive — meaning it’s more burdensome on the lower-income residents than on wealthy residents. But, he added, he hopes the governor will free up more tax revenue from other sources for municipalities.
“We used to get 10 % of the sales tax that would be sent around to the villages pro rata,” Grasso said, meaning the rate would be adjusted proportionately according to the population.
Grasso said that income has gotten smaller over the years as the state has kept more of the funds, so Burr Ridge is still down over 3 % from where it had been a decade or so ago.
Even without counting on any new stream of income, Grasso pointed out the amended FY 2025 budget is still healthy and will not run any deficits.
“This will keep us debt-free,” Grasso said. “Find me another municipality north of I-80 that’s debt free and I’ll tell you your information is probably incorrect.”
However, the proposed budget is now updated to include the permit rate hikes and the $200,000 state tax shortfall and the budget seems on track to get full board approval next month.
Jesse Wright is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.
