News-Gazette, Sunday, November 20, 2005, page B-3

Don’t Segregate Urban, Rural Road Interests in County

by Lorraine Cowart, Chair of the Champaign County Board Highway Committee, and Barbara Wysocki, County Board Chair

Recently, Urbana Mayor Laurel Prussing offered an analysis of county expenditures for roads, suggesting that Champaign County is not being fair in its allocation of funds for urban fringe road development.

A closer examination of the facts reveals that the county has been fair, even generous in this regard.

No other Illinois county supports fringe road development and, while being unique, Champaign County has every intention of honoring its commitments to the 1994 agreements that established this cooperative mechanism.

To say that the county discriminates against urban interests is a poor reading of the facts, recent history, and the future that the county engineer is proposing.

In 2004, the total of all Motor Fuel Tax funds distributed to Champaign County and all the municipalities within was $6.56 million. The distribution breakdown was: Champaign -- $1.96 million or 30 percent of the total; Urbana -- $1.07 million or 16 percent of the total; and Champaign County -- $2.39 million or 36 percent of the total.

However, when $1 million -- the amount fixed by the county board in May [for annual transfer to the cities] -- is factored in, (assuming a 60/40 share between Champaign and Urbana) the distribution is really: Champaign -- $2.56 million or 39 percent of the total; Urbana -- $1.47 million or 22 percent of the total; and Champaign County -- $1.39 million or 21 percent of the total.

This allocation percentage closely mirrors the representative populations of the three entities: Champaign 38 percent, Urbana 21 percent, and the county 18 percent.

The Cities continue to point out the benefit the County has received from fringe road agreements in terms of sales tax revenues realized for a ten year period following the [municipal] annexation of a retail business. Since 1993, combined revenues from the two cities to the county has been $2.14 million. The County's revenue stream from the City of Champaign is now completed and that from Urbana is half over. To realize this "benefit," the County has invested more than $12 million of its motor fuel tax and/or highway funds to urban fringe road projects.
The Cities also point to the property tax levy collected by the county for maintenance of county roads and bridges. The representation has been made that 66 percent of this money comes from the residents of Champaign and Urbana. The distribution of equalized assessed valuation (EAV) in FY05 was actually 56 percent within the corporate limits of Champaign-Urbana and 43 percent outside the corporate limits.

There is a dialogue under way between the financial officers and public works personnel of the cities and county to analyze and address future needs for fringe roads and other priorities of road funds. Until these conversations are completed and a true picture emerges, it would be wise to minimize political interference and commentary.

Many believe that rural and urban interests are separate and distinct from each other and when they do intersect, urban should outweigh rural. In Champaign County, that's not necessarily true.

Let us put it this way: think of the whole of Champaign County as a farm with the buildings being the incorporated areas and the fields the unincorporated areas. The thought that urban interests should trump rural interests is like the farm buildings contending that they can separate themselves from the fields and do business on their own. In the real world, the fortunes of rural and urban areas are linked together and we must proceed to act with that fundamental unity in mind.