Before voters decide wheter HomeRule is right for Northfield or not, we the residents need to know more information. It seems to me the biggest issue is why is Northfield in such a large budget deficit. Northfield is in the mess because expenses are larger than revenue. Home rule gives more flexibility in the revenue portion (hint - raising taxes), but what about the expense portion of the budget. Expenses have to be analyzed before a sensible solution can be made.

I suspect expenses are so high due to labor costs. This means the salaries and benefits we are paying the Northfield public employees. How much are firefighters, policemen, administrative personnel paid? Are the benefits and pensions we pay exceed private sector market rates? What about the unfunded liabilities? This is all information, we Northfield residents must know so we can make the best decision.

- Neilski

I found quite a lot of information on www.northfieldil.org (then click on the box labeled Home Rule), which answered these valid questions for me and convinced me that the expense cutting (which includes labor costs) has gone as far as it can --- perhaps too far. I learned about pension requirements and the State mandates on funding the pensions, which the Village cannot control. And I learned about how thinly the staff is stretched.

Residents of Northfield expect a decent level of services such as sewer and water line maintenance and road repairs. We want prompt police, fire, and ambulance responses. These have price tags which we must support. I believe home rule will help us do that.

-- A concerned and long time resident of Northfield

I have been tracking the village's budgets and operation for years and I have never seen it overstaffed or run inefficiently. In fact, our village has done some unique things to keep expenses down. One of them is cross-training many of the public works staff to be fire fighters so it can basically get two employees for one. Northfield has one of the lowest expense per resident ratios in the area and it has already made significant cuts in recent years to budgets that were already quite lean and mean. Any additional cuts will directly affect the police and fire services that Northfield residents have indicated over and over that they want kept as a top priority.

Home Rule is much more than financials, however. It also includes the ability to have more local control over things that matter deeply to to Northfield residents through being able to enact local ordinances that it is not permitted to have under its Non-Home Rule status. An example of this is the abandoned, company owned BP station on Willow Road. Northfield required BP to clean up the site through an ordinance that had been on the books for years. BP went to court and the judge ruled in their favor citing that our Non-Home Rule status precluded us from enforcing such an ordinance.

Under Non-Home Rule, we are among the 20% of all Illinois municipalities and I do not want Springfield to dictate our future. I want our village board made up of local residents to do it.

Donald Whiteman
Former Village President

Those against Home Rule will argue that we can't trust the village board, composed of our fellow neighbors and friends, to keep property taxes under control. In fact, the village passed an ordinance requiring the board to limit property tax increases to those allowed by the current Property Tax Cap unless there's a "fiscal emergency," "a budgetary mandate from the Illinois legislature" or "a budgetary mandate from a court of competent jurisdiction." I trust locally-elected officials more than I trust down-state politicians!
The IL Realtors Association recently sent out a mailing suggesting that Home Rule would include a property transfer tax. This is incorrect- it is not on the current referendum and would require a separate vote.
I encourage my fellow residents to ask questions and become informed voters! And don't forget to vote!
Elizabeth Kochvar, concerned resident