AURORA | After testy debate, Aurora City Council members on Monday delayed until Nov. 18 a final vote to repeal Aurora’s employment tax.
“What I’m asking is the council keep its word to the businesses of Aurora,” Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky said, calling for a no-vote on postponing the repeal and for stopping it’s scheduled demise.
The Occupation Privilege Tax requires employers and workers to each pay $2 per month per employee. Designed to help cover the cost of city services for workers who may not live in the city, the “head tax,” as it’s often called, brings in about $5.9 million annually in city revenues.
Almost two years ago, city lawmakers agreed to repeal the tax, and it was scheduled to expire Dec. 31, 2024. Lawmakers agreed it was a bookkeeping and financial burden, especially on small businesses.
Those concerns changed a few weeks ago when Councilmember Françoise Bergan sought to keep the tax indefinitely, using the revenues to first fund the two additional fire stations in quickly growing parts of eastern Aurora, Aurora Highlands and Southshore/Blackstone communities, and, after that, directing the proceeds into the city’s public safety budget.
City officials say the fire stations are long overdue, and the tax proceeds are needed to pay for and operate the new facilities.
Councimember Dustin Zvonek earlier this month proposed a compromise to delay the repeal of the tax until June 1, 2025, as well as a companion resolution to explore options for funding the two new fire stations. Those options could include new budget cuts, and potentially replacing or modifying the employee tax with a new levy or revenue source.
Jurinsky tried to tank that compromise on Monday, saying the tax needs to be repealed because that’s what the city has been promising businesses for nearly two years. She said repeatedly that she would personally scour the city’s budget for construction funds.
“I think a lot of games are being played right now,” Bergan countered, referring to Jurinsky. “This is disgusting.”
The council voted 6-4 for Bergan’s proposal to postpone a final decision on the future of the head tax until its Nov. 18 meeting.
Jurinsky and other city officials will, in the meantime, be looking for ways to make up for a revenue shortfall if the head tax is ultimately repealed.
I worked on budgeting for most of my career. When you have to pay bills, you must first find or create alternative income from which to do so. That is the responsible method. Just because the employee tax is cumbersome doesn’t mean you rush to dump it without a good replacement. Once again, Jurinski is on the wrong side of another argument!
These fire stations are LONG overdue. Shame on Jason Batchelor for not finding money in the budget years ago when the city started expanding further east. I’m sure the developers were told that the stations were “on the way” but here we are 20 years later and they have never been built and now we’re still probably two plus years away