The Peoria City Council is set to take up proposed tax hikes next month for next year’s budget. The deadline to approve spending plan is drawing closer.
The Council’s meeting on December 8th is the last regularly scheduled meeting of the year. The main sticking point is whether to raise property, motor fuel, and hotel taxes to dedicate money towards roads maintenance. The council deferred voting on those items, and a proposed sales tax increase, to next month to get more input from the business community. City manager Patrick Urich told council members last night that reductions would be needed if tax rates remain the same:
“With a general fund budget that’s 66-percent public safety, it would mean that we would have to make cuts in public safety. We couldn’t cut it entirely in administration, we couldn’t cut it entirely in community development, you couldn’t cut it entirely in public works.”
Urich says staff are also looking to change proposed rental-property registration fees as part of next month’s scheduled spending plan vote.
Sid Ruckriegel was also sworn-in as the newest member of the Peoria City Council. He owns a restaurant and real estate holding company. Ruckriegel is also the longtime partner of Peoria County Board Chairman Andrew Rand, and is President of the Peoria Riverfront Museum Board.
The Council also approved zoning changes that allow work to start on a $20 million project to build a new Kroger supermarket and fuel station at the Evergreen Square Shopping Center.