Evanston City Council raised the city’s self-imposed debt limitfrom $85 million to $90 million at its March 22 meeting toaccommodate a $13.5 million bond purchase that some aldermen say isnecessary for the city to pay off a string of costly lawsuits andmaintain Evanston’s high quality of life.
But some Evanston taxpayers said the rise will only lead toincreased taxes and few payoffs.
Raising the debt limit provides the city with a financialcushion that allows it to borrow extra money and issue more bondsto improve city services and infrastructure, aldermen said. Andthough the debt limit was increased to $90 million, the city’sactual outstanding debt is only $87 million, said Ald. Gene Feldman(9th).
“Rather than wait up to 20 years to save up the money, we canissue bonds and build a new park,” Feldman said. “Without that, wewould rapidly become a second-rate, second-class suburb and theproperty values would go down.”
Though the city is purchasing the bonds through the debtservices portion of the property tax, residents will not experienceany tax hikes this year.
In a similar move, City Council raised the debt limit from $75million to $85 million in 2003 to increase the city’s debt to $81million. Prior to last year’s debt limit increase, the council hadnot raised the limit for 10 years.
“It’s a little more than I would like to see,” said Ald. EdmundMoran (6th), referring to the back-to-back increases over the pasttwo years.
But Moran also said that with almost $20 million in potentiallegal liability against the city, it would be financiallyirresponsible for the council not to take precautions in a fiscalyear where the city could face several pricey court judgments.
“The specter of the possibility of having to pay one or more ofthese very large judgments is driving the fact that we have had togo to the bond market to try and create more reserves,” he said.”We are cementing our ability to pay judgments if we have to, andthat’s something that we cannot avoid.”
Aside from lawsuit concerns, Ald. Arthur Newman (1st) said itwas important for residents to realize that it would be difficultfor the city to maintain its quality of services without borrowingmoney.
“You can always say don’t spend the money, but then people askwhy you have a second-rate library,” Newman said at the meeting.”We have done whatever we can to keep the spending down andreasonable.”
But some Evanston taxpayers did not agree with the Council’sdecision. Evanston resident Mike Rothschild said increasing thedebt will merely increase the tax burden on residents who will getlittle or nothing in return.
“We’re going to see tax increases that get us absolutely nothingbut paying off debt,” he said. “The city council has constantlymortgaged the present for some certain far-flung future that wenever get to see.”
And with Evanston residents already paying one of the highestproperty tax rates on the North Shore, resident Mimi Peterson saidthat more tax increases could push residents to the “breakingpoint.”
“I don’t think we should increase the debt limit every time weturn around just so we can go spend money,” she said. “If you lookat city budgets over the long haul, you have a projected deficitthat remains there and we have consistent increases in propertytaxes.”
While Rothschild conceded that some borrowing was necessary, hesaid the council should try other methods to reduce the debt.
“The council never tries to cut expenses,” he said. “Someborrowing is essential, but I think there are things we could putoff.”
