“This is one of those votes I think a lot of us will make, holding our noses… If this doesn’t happen, you are not going to have buses.”
– Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th), conveying the inevitability of a real-estate transfer-tax increase in today’s Trib. Chicago’s finance committee met on Monday but delayed a vote on the tax hike, which will be used to bolster CTA’s pension and health-care funds. The additional tax – an increase from $7.50 per $1,000 of sales price to $10.50 – could generate as much as $2.3 billion in revenue over the next three decades.
Committee members are pushing to make seniors exempt from the 40-percent tax increase and to guarantee free CTA rides for active military personnel and disabled veterans. Some aldermen also want CTA to invest its money with more local and minority-owned management firms.