Tinley Park trustees eliminate vehicle sticker fee program after 5-1 vote
What you need to know: The Village of Tinley Park Board of Trustees voted 5-1 Tuesday, Feb. 21, to eliminate the vehicle sticker fee program that has been in place for decades.
TINLEY PARK, Ill. — Residents will no longer be required to purchase vehicle stickers after the Village of Tinley Park Board of Trustees voted 5-1 Tuesday, Feb. 21, to eliminate the program.
Trustee Diane Galante cast the dissenting ballot.
The stickers had been required to be displayed on any vehicle operated or parked by a Tinley Park resident on a public street. According to the Village’s website, the sticker cost $25 for most vehicles — while motorcycles cost $10, trucks weighing 1 ton or less cost $35, trucks weighing more than 1 ton cost $55, and bus or taxi stickers cost $40.
“Free stickers will be available for residents who would like to continue displaying the sticker on their vehicle,” Clerk Nancy O’Connor said during the meeting. “These free stickers can be picked up at Village Hall during regular business hours starting April 1.”
Assistant Village Manager Hannah Lipman said staff reviewed the sticker program in 2017. Back then, revenue for the program was about $700,000. Today, however, it is just $309,000.
“This has been a revenue source that has been struggling for quite some time now,” Lipman said during a Committee of the Whole discussion that preceded the official vote. “Historically speaking, we used this revenue source for our pavement management program (PMP). We aim to have that be at about $1 million with this revenue source. Looking back at those numbers, it hasn’t reached those figures in quite some time.”
Lipman said there were several reasons for the decline in revenue, pointing to residents not purchasing the vehicle stickers as much as they used to and a growing senior population. Lipman added that in-house engineers have offset some of the costs for the PMP, and the vehicle sticker program itself costs about $75,000 to administer.
“We’ve been offsetting our PMP with other general fund revenues from new development and businesses that have come to town over the years,” Lipman said. “So, we’re not necessarily worried by any means that we’ll be unable to make up for this revenue source. Our revenues remain strong.”
Tinley Park Police Chief Matthew Walsh also said enforcement of the sticker program was difficult, as officers could only do so on public property.
“We cannot go onto your driveway and look and see if you have a sticker,” he said. “We can’t go into apartment complexes.
“The enforcement is difficult. We rely on good citizens paying for their stickers. That has gone down recently, so that’s why the revenue has gone down.”
Galante, however, asked staff how the revenue would be made up to pay for the PMP — asking if by the general fund covering the loss, it would mean the residents had their taxes increased elsewhere.
Before the official vote, she asked to table the item so staff could further investigate the costs and savings being proposed, but no other board member seconded the motion.
“We’ve been moving capital funds to cover this, so it doesn’t pay for itself,” Galante said. “It’s going to have to be covered somewhere else in addition to that amount.
“To remove this fee, most likely it is going to add to the taxes in the general fund, because it is going to have to be covered. We’ve been covering this by capital funds, so we’re going to have to continue to cover it. I just think that we could have looked for a better way.”
O’Connor accused Galante of bringing politics into the discussion.
“This is an ordinance that is [55] years old and far outlived its time,” she said. “To say that it is going to be taxed someplace else is utterly ridiculous and grandstanding on the dais.”
O’Connor said she and others on the Village Board want to save taxpayers some money.
“It’s a small amount,” she said. “But, more than that, it is the gesture of doing the right thing.”
Trustee Colleen Sullivan, who voted in favor of eliminating the sticker fee, said the discussion was getting overcomplicated.
“It is simply eliminating a Village sticker — a fee that a lot of people don’t pay,” she said.
Sullivan added that the free stickers are being offered so Tinley Park residents do not get ticketed in other towns for not having one. Those stickers will be good for a period of two years.