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Trustees consider streaming, utility and other user fees as options to fund roads and capital projects
Summary
Trustees discussed a menu of potential user fees — including a streaming (amusement) tax and a utility tax — and reviewed a financing model that could allow a $10 million bond without a tax referendum if capital user fees and existing MFT commitments are used as pledged revenue.
Members of the Village of Campton Hills Board of Trustees discussed potential user fees and bond financing options to close projected capital shortfalls, but took no vote.
An attorney who advised the board said the village likely could adopt a streaming (amusement) tax even as a non–home-rule municipality, citing appellate litigation over Chicago’s ordinance and the interplay with the Internet Tax Freedom Act as part of the legal analysis. The attorney summarized the advice: “it is our opinion that the village could institute a streaming tax.”
Staff presented a preliminary revenue model that showed if the village imposed the full set of proposed user fees and pledged roughly $450,000 of motor fuel tax (MFT) receipts, the village would have sufficient revenue to support a $10 million municipal bond without placing a property-tax referendum before voters. The board asked staff to circulate the prior handout and to bring a more detailed financing model to the next meeting.
Trustees expressed differing views about specific fees. One trustee said a tax on places of eating was a “non-starter” given the small number of local restaurants and administrative complexity. Several trustees supported exploring a utility tax and a small amusement/streaming tax as being broadly used in other municipalities. The group acknowledged legal limits on certain taxes: a fuel- or gas-station tax requires home-rule authority and therefore was not available.
Staff noted Spirit Financial had provided a preliminary municipal-bond illustration with an interest rate just above 4 percent; trustees asked that a full model showing debt service and user-fee pledging be prepared for the next meeting before any policy decision.
No ordinance or fee was adopted; trustees directed staff and legal counsel to prepare more detailed fiscal models and draft ordinance language for future consideration.
