Aldermen table vote on proposed 1 percent local grocery tax to learn if projected $1.2 million loss is accurate

QUINCY — The Quincy City Council voted during its meeting Monday night to indefinitely shelve a proposed 1 percent municipal grocery tax that would replace a state tax that has been collected since 1981.

Beginning Jan. 1, 2026, the state no longer will collect a 1 percent tax on groceries. However, each taxing authority statewide can enact an ordinance to collect that 1 percent tax itself. Quincy’s total sales tax is 8 percent, and it will remain at 8 percent if the local ordinance is created.

Aldermen Ben Uzelac (D-7) and Jack Holtschlag (D-7) made and seconded the motion for the tax. When Quincy Mayor Mike Troup asked for discussion, there were a few moments of silence before Kelly Mays (R-3) spoke.

“I think that it’s really early to make this decision, since we don’t have to decide until October,” she said. “I just think that we can wait longer. We can inform the public. We can decide if this is the right move or not. I know, like for budgeting purposes, there’s going to be a one-month lag time, but we have to decide by October if we were going to do it. We could see from now until October if the predictions are accurate or not, and we would just have more information to make a better decision.”

Mays made a motion to table the vote on the local grocery tax indefinitely, and 11 of the 12 aldermen in attendance agreed. Uzelac voted no. Mike Rein (R-5) was absent for a second consecutive week and no one has been tabbed to replace Mike Farha (R-4), who announced his resignation on Friday.

If municipalities want to implement the tax locally, a certified copy of the ordinance must be submitted to the Illinois Department of Revenue by Oct. 10 for the tax to be imposed — with no lapse in revenues — beginning Jan. 1, 2026. 

Comptroller Sheri Ray said she had projected a 2.5 percent increase in the city’s sales tax income if the grocery tax was continued in Fiscal Year 2026.

The vote on the grocery tax was tabled two weeks ago when Rein asked if the local tax could be reinstated in 2026 in case aldermen don’t pass it this year. Ray didn’t have an answer then and told aldermen she would “look into it.” 

Included in a presentation by Ray about projected revenue for Fiscal Year 2026 was slide that said an ordinance adopted by Oct. 1 would implement a tax beginning Jan. 1, 2026. If the ordinance is not adopted until April 1, 2026, the tax would be implemented on July 1, 2026.

“There are two times a year you can impose a tax,” Ray said. “It can go into effect on January 1 or it can go to effect on July 1.”

Ray made her pitch to aldermen to keep the grocery tax in place.

“The grocery tax is not a new tax,” she said. “It’s a tax that’s being collected, and I believe that it would probably be, for the ease of retailers, (easier) not to have to reconfigure their point-of-sale systems if they just maintained it. We still are only estimating what that revenue might be. I know the city treasurer (Kelly Stupasky) has done calculations, and we think it’s a $1 million to $1.2 million (loss in tax dollars for the city).

“It’s one of those taxes that it’s not just the residents but our non-residents, people who work here, shop here, travel here, who are also helping pay that tax. It takes pressure off the property tax.”

Jeff Mays, the former director of administrative services for the city who resigned from the position at the end of February, previously told aldermen that Illinois Municipal League (IML) projections show the city will lose $1.1 million in sales tax revenue if the city doesn’t pass the local tax — and he believed that figure was low.

A Jan. 16 story by Dylan Sharkey for Illinois Policy said Illinois is one of only 13 states with a grocery tax, and it is the only state among the 10 most populated. Sharkey wrote that 46 Illinois towns will continue the 1 percent grocery tax once the statewide tax ends in 2026, according to data from the Illinois Department of Revenue. One of them is Normal. Its town council voted 4-3 in September 2024 to institute the local tax.

Eliminating Illinois’ grocery tax has the backing of 7 in 10 Illinois voters, according to an Illinois Policy Institute poll conducted June 26-29, 2023, by Echelon Insights for the Illinois Policy Institute.

Ray forecasted revenues at $50.73 million for Fiscal Year 2026 — two percent higher than the $49.73 million budget for Fiscal Year 2025. She said the budget will be made public later this month, and she anticipates a vote by the City Council at the April 21 meeting. She anticipates the aldermen voting for the budget without a local grocery tax included — for now.

“I hate to lose a tax when you know we are losing (money),” she said. “Nobody wants to raise property taxes. We’re a strong retail-based city, and I feel like that’s part of our base.”