City not stuck on vehicle wheel tax

Stickers likely eliminated for 1 1/2-cent gas tax increase

Wednesday, January 4, 2006

By JOHN R. PULLIAM

The Register-Mail

GALESBURG - Based on the discussion at Tuesday's Galesburg City Council meeting, it appears wheel tax stickers are going to be eliminated with an additional 1 1/2-cent-per-gallon gas tax taking their place.

Both items were on first reading Tuesday. If wheel tax stickers are eliminated, they will still be required until they expire Aug. 31. The stickers gross about $180,000, but that does not include expenses to issue, collect, advertise and enforce the ordinance. If the price of the stickers was raised to $15, the original proposal, the gross amount would be $270,000. Add the $160,000 annually generated by the current city 1 cent per gallon tax, the total money generated would have been $430,000.

By eliminating the wheel tax stickers and collecting a 2 1/2-cent city gas tax, the money collected would be essentially the same, with the higher gas tax bringing in about $400,000 annually. The city will incur no collection fees on the gas tax.

"The best taxes are the ones easiest to collect, are equitable and fair across the board," City Manager Gary Goddard said. "The vehicle tax stickers were possibly none of those and the gas tax is all of those."

The service stations will collect the gas tax and pay it to the city. There will be a 5 percent penalty for late payment of the taxes.

"I received a total of eight calls and all of them in favor of the gasoline tax over the city wheel tax stickers," Alderman Lomac Payton, Ward 4, said.

Alderman Karen Lafferty, Ward 5, said she likes the gas tax because there were many people with vehicles registered in Galesburg who never bought wheel tax stickers. Also, company cars from outside the city and out-of-town residents who use Galesburg's streets will now help pay for the maintenance of those streets.

Alderman Mike Spah, Ward 1, wanted to know if the additional gas tax money will go to the general fund, as the wheel tax sticker money did. Goddard said the gas tax money will go to the city gas fund, "but there's a way to support activities not supported by the general fund" with the money.

In answer to a question from Mayor Gary Smith, Goddard said city gas tax money is used for such things as pothole patching, street repair, brick street maintenance and other work on the roads in the city.

Ronald Friend, 1297 Harrison St., voiced the only objection.

"I'm totally against raising the gas tax," Friend said. He said once the wheel tax sticker was paid for, that was it for the year, but "the gasoline tax is ongoing all the time."

The elimination of wheel tax stickers and the gas tax increase are expected to come before the council for a vote Jan. 17.