Joliet council member proposes raising city gas tax to pay for fleet upgrades

A Joliet City Council member wants to increase the city’s gas tax as a way to raise $19 million to replace an aging fleet of vehicles.

The city taxes gas at a rate of one cent a gallon.

Council member Sherri Reardon said an increase in the local gas tax would be used to finance replacement vehicles for the city’s aging fleet of cars and trucks.

“Given what we could show in terms of our aging fleet, people may be more inclined to be in favor of this,” Reardon said Tuesday. “We need vehicles that can plow our roads. And when you call an ambulance you want it to get there.”

City staff last year put an increase in the gas tax in the proposed budget, but it was removed before the budget was approved.

Joliet officials said the city's gas tax is low compared with other communities. But the tax would come after the state tax on fuel was doubled to 38 cents a gallon this summer.

No number has been put forth on the proposed tax hike, as city staff are just beginning to explore how much of an increase would be needed to support a bond program to finance vehicle replacement.

Reardon aired her thoughts about increasing the gas tax last week at a meeting of the City Council’s Finance Committee, where staff said it will cost about $16 million to make needed replacements to the city vehicle fleet.

Public Assets Supervisor Mike Eulitz recommended the city set aside an additional $3 million a year to replace vehicles on a regular basis.

“I think we need to be more proactive than reactive,” Eulitz told the committee.

More than half of the city’s police vehicles are at least 10 years old, and about three-fourths of the vehicles used by the Roadway Division of Public Works are at least a decade old, Eulitz said.

Fleet Services Superintendent Dave Druzik told the committee that the city pays “a premium” for replacing vehicles when they break down rather than on a planned schedule. Druzik said that often vehicles are in such bad shape that they cannot be traded in or sold when the city buys new ones.

“Right now, we take them until they literally disintegrate, and that’s not good business,” Druzik said.

Reardon said her proposal to raise the gas tax is “in the infancy stage.”

Reardon said she favors a gas tax after talking with staff about how the city might fund a vehicle replacement program. She said it is a better option than a property tax increase.

“We’re not just putting the tax on residents of Joliet,” she said. “Anyone who buys gas in Joliet would be paying this tax, and we’d be able to use it to replace our vehicles.”