The Blind Spot

For years, Village leadership had a blind spot: how the Village is actually paid for. Campton Hills doesn’t fund itself the way most people assume. The Village levies no property tax and no sales tax of its own. Most of what it spends arrives as a paycheck: revenue collected by the State of Illinois and shared with municipalities, plus Road and Bridge funds.

What’s in the Paycheck

• LGDF: the Local Government Distributive Fund, a share of state income tax.
• MFT: Motor Fuel Tax, distributed for road work.
• Sales tax shared by the State.
• Road and Bridge funds.

The Village controls none of these amounts. Springfield and the formulas decide.

The Model That Worked in 2007

When the Village incorporated in 2007, the business model worked, as long as you didn’t count roads or police. The Village made it work with police. Then it gradually tried to take on roads.

The Paycheck Started Shrinking in 2011

Beginning in 2011, LGDF, MFT, Road and Bridge and sales tax revenue, taken together, began to decline. The Village’s leadership stuck with the old model anyway, along with a habit of fighting everyone, until a change in leadership in 2015. Road maintenance was deferred for years, and paving was later paused again.

A household whose paycheck shrinks for a decade and never adjusts its budget isn’t being thrifty. It’s falling behind.

What We Did About It

• Created a dedicated revenue source for roads with utility and streaming taxes.
• Won grant funding for several miles of Village-owned roads.
• Traded itemized township billing for the remaining 50% of Road and Bridge funds every year.
• Required new development to pay its own way through a TIF for water and sewer, and Special Service Areas for roads and stormwater.
• Brought in a professional municipal accounting firm and an outsourced Treasurer, so the numbers are kept by professionals.

Where It Still Falls Short

We are catching up. About 15% of Village roads are on track to be paved. That pace cannot be kept up on today’s revenue, and Fox Mill alone will take three to four years of the road budget. The next Board has to keep budgeting for the paycheck the Village actually gets, not the one it got in 2007.