Will County government sees minimal financial impact from pandemic so far

Will County officials continue to report minimal financial impact from the economic fallout due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Karen Hennessy, the county’s finance director, spoke to the Will County Board Finance Committee during a virtual meeting Tuesday about the latest revenue reports. Through June, Will County has seen an overall decrease of over $500,000 in its main revenue streams compared to this point last year.

This comes months after the finance department projected revenue losses of between $19 million and $26 million compared to last year.

Hennessy explained that compared to other counties in the region, Will County doesn't rely as heavily on revenue from sources like sales taxes on the entertainment and hotel industries, which have suffered greatly during the pandemic.

"In meetings with my counterparts in other counties, I feel like we are not seeing what they are," she told the committee.

Hennessy said the county government would have been in even better fiscal shape if not for a payment to the village of Crete this year for about $639,000 in reimbursement for erroneous sales tax payments to the county. If not for the reimbursement, Will County would actually have seen a $177,000 increase in overall revenue compared to last year.

"So I really feel like while there is an effect … it didn’t come to anything near what people were predicting when COVID started." Hennessy said during the meeting.

Board member Jackie Traynere, D-Bolingbrook, warned her colleagues not to feel overly optimistic about the minimal losses in revenue so far. She said the state government has "clawed back" money from local governments during previous economic hard times.

"I just want to caution everybody that that could be coming very soon," Traynere said.

Hennessy also reported new revenue streams the county is seeing for the first time this year. On top of an increase in the revenue the county receives from the increased state gas tax, the county is also seeing money from its own new gas tax. Through its first five months, the new gas tax has yielded about $5.6 million to go toward county road improvements.

Jeff Ronaldson, the county's director of transportation, projected the new tax would generate $12 million in additional annual revenue. The tax went into effect in February.

Through seven months, the county has also taken in about $45,000 from the state's tax on recreational marijuana sales. Hennessy said the revenue numbers from the county's marijuana tax was not yet available.