Illinois is giving municipalities the ability to reinstitute the 1% grocery tax locally starting in January, when the state one disappears. Municipalities are now asking the state to give them more taxing authority.

The Illinois Senate’s Transportation Committee has been meeting since July to grapple with the thorny issue of funding for the Chicago area’s transit system and whether to replace the CTA, Metra, Pace and Regional Transportation Authority with a single agency that will oversee bus, train and paratransit services. The proposal also calls for $1.5 billion in new funding. 

Illinois shoppers would save a dollar when they buy $100 worth of groceries under Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s proposal to eliminate a state sales tax on groceries.

Towns and cities can’t access COVID-19 relief funding allocated to them by the federal government because the state is holding onto it instead, the Illinois Municipal League said Wednesday as it called on Pritzker’s administration to release the money.