Godfrey Upholds Mayor’s Grocery Tax Veto After Debate
Village proceeds with sales tax increase instead of grocery tax replacement; tied vote fails to override mayor's veto.
Village of Godfrey Board of Trustees
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GODFREY – An attempt to override Godfrey Mayor Mike McCormick’s veto of a village-wide 1% grocery tax was ultimately unsuccessful on Tuesday night after much discussion and debate.
An item to reconsider the mayor’s veto of the grocery tax received a 3-3 vote, which fell short of the two-thirds supermajority needed for it to pass. Voting to uphold the veto were Trustees Karen MacAtee, Sarah Woodman, and Gerard Fischer, while Trustees Rick Lauschke, Mike Fisher, and Craig Lombardi voted to override the mayor’s veto.
Godfrey differs from most local communities which have voted to implement locally collected 1% sales taxes on groceries to offset major revenue losses once a state-level grocery tax expires in 2026. Instead, trustees voted in July to approve a 0.75% general sales tax increase in an effort to more fairly split the tax burden between village residents and visitors.
Village Board members then voted on Sept. 2, 2025 to pass a 1% grocery tax ordinance for Godfrey, which would have been implemented on top of the already-passed general sales tax increase. Citing concerns of overtaxing residents, Mayor McCormick promptly announced the following morning that he would veto the grocery tax ordinance – an action he made official at this week’s meeting.
Lauschke has repeatedly stated in past meetings that allowing the grocery tax to expire would be “a mistake” without passing a replacement tax ahead of the Oct. 1, 2025 deadline for the village to start collecting the tax in 2026. He reiterated these and other concerns at Tuesday’s meeting, adding he sounds “like a broken record.”
“I think this is something we need to keep in place,” he said. “This is not a new tax, this is an existing tax that’s been in place for over 25 years.”
Instead, Lauschke proposed repealing the general sales tax ordinance and calling a meeting between village officials to weigh the financial demands of current and future stormwater projects against budgeted and surplus funds to determine whether the village needs one or both sources of tax revenue.
“If we do not implement or keep the grocery tax tonight, we lose it permanently,” Lauschke said. “We can always take the grocery tax off, but we can’t put it back on … we may not need that much sales tax to do what we need to do.”
Fischer said to his knowledge, the general sales tax increase would more than make up for any lost revenue from allowing the state grocery tax to expire. He added Godfrey residents would likely appreciate any form of tax relief the village can offer them.
“I was under the impression that we raised the sales tax in order to compensate for the grocery tax,” Fischer said. “In the State of Illinois, we have other taxes that Godfrey residents are getting pounded on – the gas tax just went up in July, the cigarette tax went up … I think anything we can do to help alleviate the Godfrey residents on taxes would be appreciated.”
He and Woodman added that they’ve had residents reach out in support of the mayor’s veto striking down the grocery tax. Woodman further noted that a large amount of sales tax dollars are generated by visitors from outside the village – as opposed to grocery tax dollars, which are mostly collected from village residents.
Following the board’s 3-3 vote, the mayor’s veto will remain in place, and Godfrey will move forward with a 0.75% general sales tax increase instead of replacing the expiring state tax on groceries in 2026.
A full recording of the Sept. 16, 2025 Godfrey Village Board meeting is available at the top of this story or on Riverbender.com/video.
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