Report: Tax, Fee Increases Under Consideration To Balance County Budget
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is apparently considering targeted tax and fee increases and cost cutting to close a $115 million deficit in next year's county budget.
As WBBM Newsradios David Roe reports, the Chicago Tribune says Preckwinkle's Budget Director, Andrea Gibson, told a City Club of Chicago lunch crowd Tuesday that a property tax increase is off the table, and that Preckwinkle plans to complete the plan to eliminate the last quarter of the 1 percentage point sales tax increase put in place by her predecessor.
But the Tribune reports the Preckwinkle administration is not revealing now which taxes might be raised.
For now, Gibson says in the Tribune report, the focus is to close tax loopholes, to give people and businesses incentives to pay their taxes and to try to recoup user fees.
The county is hoping the federal government will allow early enrollment of uninsured impoverished people in Medicare, under the federal Affordable Care Act, the Tribune reported. If that happens, the county will have found a way to balance the suffering books on its health care system, the newspaper reported.
LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio's David Roe reports
