Restaurant owners in Homewood will pay a $100 fine for being late with sending monthly tax payments to the village.
At the Sept. 25 meeting, village board members approved the late fee on Homewood’s places for eating tax, a 2 percent tax approved in 2014. The tax was aimed at supplementing the loss of sales tax revenue. It applies to any business that sells food and provides a place to eat it.
Any business owner more than 60 days late with tax payments will be subject to the fine. Another $100 fine will be imposed for each additional month the payment is late past the 60 days.
Business owners pay the tax in Homewood on the 20th day of each month after sales, with September taxes due October 20, and so on.
In a memo to Village Manager Jim Marino, Homewood Director of Finance Dennis Bubenik said 60 vendors are subject to the tax. About 10 of them consistently miss the deadline.
“To get payments on time we have made follow-up phone calls, issued court citations, wrote warning letters that liquor licenses are subject to suspension and suspended yearly May 1 renewals of the business license,” Bubenik wrote. “Still the issue continues.”
Bubenik said a late fee had been considered for about a year.
Also, the board awarded a contract to Abbey Paving and Sealcoating for improvements at the Municipal Service Center at 17755 Ashland Avenue. The contract is worth $561,598.71. It will be done in two phases.
The Municipal Service Center’s asphalt pavement hasn’t been resurfaced since the center was built in 1974, according to village officials. The company will also construct an 8,600 square-foot reinforced concrete slab for storing sand, stone and soil spoils and provide 224 concrete blocks for the material bin storage walls.
A contract for sanitary sewer lining was awarded to Visu-Sewer for $300,000.
Lining sanitary sewers helps alleviate failing conditions of the sewer and prevents rainwater from entering the system, which can cause backups and flooding, Director of Public Works John Schaefer wrote in a memo to Marino.
