Voters in Bensenville recently made clear how they felt about a proposed 1% tax on groceries. In a referendum on April 1, 91% voted against it.

Even though the measure failed in Bensenville, at least 163 communities around the state have recently enacted local grocery taxes.

Gov. JB Pritzker signed a bill last year repealing the state’s 1% grocery tax, saying it hit poorer families harder. But the bill also allowed municipalities, which depend on the revenue, to implement their own tax. Bensenville put the proposal on the ballot to get voters’ input, but local officials are not required to do so. In many municipalities, local governing bodies are casting the deciding vote.

The political hot potato promises to create a patchwork of taxes and has already led to finger-pointing between local and state officials. The debate over local grocery taxes also comes at a time when many consumers are worried about rising food prices.

“I don’t like it, but I guess I kind of understand it,” Jane Kramer, 73, said of the tax as she shopped for groceries in west suburban Batavia. “Yes, I’m disappointed about it, but that’s our lives.”

Other shoppers don’t think a 1% grocery tax is a big deal.Ken Mate, 66, buys his groceries in bulk, and said he relies on two-for-one deals and sales to keep his food costs low.

“I don’t think it’s gonna hurt anybody’s bottom line here,” Mate said while shopping in Batavia, “because nobody’ll notice it.”

Notice it or not, the tax generates an estimated $400 million annually, according to Pritzker’s office.

All the money collected from the state grocery tax is passed on to local municipalities, where it is spent on basic services like police, firefighters, snow plowing and garbage pickup.

The state suspended the grocery tax for fiscal year 2022 to help fight rising inflation, but municipal leaders say losing the stream of revenue permanently forces them to consider cutting services, raising sales or property taxes, or implementing a local grocery tax. If they approve a local grocery tax by Oct. 1, it would take effect on Jan. 1, 2026, when the state tax expires.

Pritzker called the statewide grocery tax “embarrassing” because it hurts poorer people the most by taking a bigger bite out of their income, though low-income recipients of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, do not pay the tax. While the governor takes credit for cutting the tax, local leaders say it leaves them with hard choices.

“Unfortunately, the governor threw it to the municipalities,” Algonquin Mayor Debby Sosine said. Her northwest suburban village, which receives $2 million annually in state grocery tax proceeds and uses it to pave and repair roads, has already approved its own tax.

Sosine was one of the mayors who warned last year, as the Pritzker proposal was being debated, that loss of the tax would hurt them immensely.

Chicago officials have yet to decide whether to impose their own tax. The state grocery tax generates an estimated $60 million to $80 million for the city, said Ald. Pat Dowell, chair of the Committee on Finance. “It’s a not insignificant amount of money,” she said.

Whether the city will impose its own grocery tax will be decided in upcoming budget hearings across the city.

“People should be involved in the budget process,” Dowell said. “Residents should come out and speak their mind and talk to their aldermen.”

Illinois residents already pay the highest combined state and local taxes in the nation, at more than $13,000 annually, according to a recent report by WalletHub. Food prices rose 3% in the past year as of March, and the federal government forecasts them to rise another 3.5% this year.

Cook County also has a 1.25% grocery tax to fund the Regional Transportation Authority.

More than a dozen suburbs in the Chicago area have already adopted local grocery taxes, including Barrington, Berwyn, Buffalo Grove, Carol Stream, Cicero, Des Plaines, Lake Forest, Lake Zurich, Lombard, Oak Lawn, Orland Park, Palatine, Schaumburg, Tinley Park and Wheaton. Officials in other suburbs, including Naperville, Batavia and Oswego, are considering doing so.

The state grocery tax generates about $6.5 million annually for Naperville, where the City Council is expected to take up the issue in May or June.

“We will be looking at both expenditure reductions as well as potential revenue sources over the next couple of months,” City Manager Douglas Krieger said.

The south suburbs, which collectively receive more than $20 million in funding from the state grocery tax, will be hit particularly hard, South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association Executive Director Kristi DeLaurentiis said.

Many towns in the south suburbs have little commercial base.

Some areas also are food deserts, with no grocery stores to tax. To remedy the lack of fresh food, some municipalities have pledged part of their state grocery tax revenues to attract grocery stores, and are contractually obligated to come up with the money whether the state provides it or not.

“Many of our communities are significantly distressed, and don’t have a lot of economic activity,” she said. “The grocery tax revenue is very important to communities that have less commercial activity,” she said. “So many of them are evaluating, do we need to go to the taxpayer? The grocery tax is likely far easier than additional property taxes.”

In west suburban Batavia, City Administrator Laura Newman said the loss of the state tax will mean a reduction of about $1.2 million in revenue annually.

The City Council took preliminary action to approve a local grocery tax, but not before criticizing the state’s decision.

“It was just a motion to make somebody look good, is what this was,” Mayor Jeffery Schielke said, deeming the decision a political move from Pritzker.

Ald. Abby Beck called a grocery tax “regressive” and said it would “hurt our most vulnerable citizens the most,” suggesting Batavia reduce its version of the tax below 1% in the future and compensate with other funding sources, like property taxes.

Passing its own tax would allow Batavia more local control, Ald. Kevin Malone said. “It’s kind of a big stinker that this got put on our lap,” he said.

Downstate cities like Carbondale, Danville and Peoria also have approved their own grocery taxes.

“If local governments believe it is necessary to tax milk, bread, eggs, etc. to fund local services/local government, then they should be responsible and accountable for that decision to local taxpayers,” Illinois Department of Revenue spokeswoman Maura Kownacki told the Tribune.

“The state should not be imposing a regressive, statewide sales tax on groceries especially during a time when inflation is hitting the pocketbooks of Illinois families.”