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2024/05/07 - Mayor's Column: How Federal / State Legislation Affects You

­“AN OPEN DOOR TO O’FALLON”
A WEEKLY NOTE FROM MAYOR HERB ROACH
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We often hear about pieces of Federal or State Legislation passing with little thought as to how it may impact ourselves or our community.  I’m going to try to show the impact that just a few are having on you directly and indirectly because they impact the Community, Schools, and others. 

The city has worked hard to lower our Real-estate Tax rate for 7 straight years or back to the lowest point in over 35+ years but each year the State and Federal government seems to come up with ideas but don’t stop to realize the true impact on cities or schools. Here are 5 examples that you may not realize.

  • The State’s increase to the minimum wages has cost the city about $285,000 per year.
  • The Veterans Exemption has impacted the City by about $900,000 per year and our schools by over $4,500,000 per year.  The city hopes to receive about $300,000 this year to help cover about 1/3 of this loss. And now it is being proposed to offer the same benefits to those dishonorably discharged.
  • The implementation of the Paid Leave for All Workers Program could cost the city about $20,000 per year.
  • The State has decided to eliminate the 1 cent Food sales tax.  This will decrease city revenue by approximately 1.2 Million Dollars per year.
  • The State is considering changes to pensions and paid leave for city and state employees that could add some substantial additional cost.

This is an increase of cost or reduction of income of over 2 million dollars to the city.  The city has been managing your tax dollars to keep up city services while decreasing the city’s Real-estate tax rate, but this gets rougher each year when Springfield or Washington adds to our costs or decreases revenue.

And then you can add the cost to each of us for the additional State Motor Fuel Tax.  With the new increase that is scheduled to go into effect later this year, the gas tax will have gone up over 26 cents per gallon in just 5 years or a 135% increase.  This is costing O’Fallon citizens about 1.3 million dollars per year.  This legislation was passed with an automatic COLA increase each year built into it, so NO ONE has to vote on it, it will just automatically go up.

And I want to wish ALL of OUR MOTHERS a HAPPY MOTHERS DAY.

As residents of O’Fallon, you should always be able to reach out to your elected officials and ask questions about what is happening in O’Fallon. Having open communications is important to me and something I care very deeply about. Thank you for reading, and please remember, my door is always open.