Taxpayer Financed Lobbyists Continue Trying to Defeat Jack Franks’ Tax Cap Tightening Bill

Herb Franks designed his office with Springfield's Frank Lloyd Wright's Dana Thomas House in mind. He hoped that his three sons would practice law there with him, but only Jack is. One is is Lake in the Hills, the other is in Florida. Whenever his father tries to get him to come North, his Florida son asks the temperature in Marengo. Of course, Florida has no income tax besides being warmer.

Yesterday I saw Jack Franks and his father Herb in their Marengo law office, where I was waiting for a friend to complete an appointment.

Jack didn’t pause to shake hands, but his father, whom I met while I was County Treasurer during tax sale time, was his usual genial self.

Maybe it was the John O’Neill for State Rep. bumper sticker I had on my windshield in front of the rear view mirror that was off-putting.  (It blocks the sun and is the best place to put a bumper sticker because more people can see it there than when you put in on the back of your car.)

In any event, although Jack is not happy with my reporting that he flipped on the Com Ed rate increase bill and other stories, he is on the side of the angels in his sponsorship of House Bill 3793.

You figure that out for yourselves by reading the following frantic email to township officials from the Township Officials of Illinois. That’s the organization that your tax dollars finance, by the way.

To: Township Officials
From: Bryan E. Smith, Executive Director
Date: November 2, 2011
Re: House Bill 3793
Urgent Legislative Matter – Contact Your Legislators

House Bill 3793 is currently on second reading in the Illinois House. This bill would affect Townships and Road Districts in PTELL (Tax Cap) Counties. This bill amends the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law (PTELL) to prevent a taxing district (Townships and Road Districts included) from capturing the CPI increase for its extension limitation if the district’s total EAV is less than the previous levy year. TOI OPPOSES this bill because it would reduce available property tax revenues for Townships and Road Districts. PTELL (Tax Caps) already limits (in those counties that have tax caps) the ability of Townships/Road Districts to capture all available growth during good economic times. It would be very unfair to also prevent a Township/Road District from capturing minimal cost-of-living increases that are available.

We have heard that the sponsor might try a legislative parliamentary procedure to get this passed during the final days of the VETO Session next week. The House could vote any time on this bill during VETO Session next week, November 8-10.

Please call your State Representative now in their Springfield office by calling 217.782.2000 (State Operator) and ask them to OPPOSE and vote NO on House Bill 3793.

Thank you for your assistance with this urgent legislative matter.

Pam Butler
Office Manager, TOI
Drug and Alcohol Program

Taxpayers can, of course, call their legislator, too. The switchboard number is 217-782-2000.

Secretaries in Springfield usually keep tallies and you can bet the calls from taxeaters will exceed those from taxpayers.


Comments

Taxpayer Financed Lobbyists Continue Trying to Defeat Jack Franks’ Tax Cap Tightening Bill — 3 Comments

  1. The State is in debt to the tune of almost ten thousand dollars for every citizen in the State and Jack Franks wants to control property taxes?

    What a genius!

    I am totally in favor of reducing all taxes but how about starting to make this possible by cutting state spending?

    How come Jack is not working hard to eliminate the prevailing wage law to lower the cost of re-paving our streets, replacing our bridges and building food pantries?

    How about legislation to smooth the property tax assessment system which is in total disarray?

    How about ending the practice of providing FREE (you and I pay for it) healthcare to illegal aliens?

    IMHO Jack’s bill is just another attempt to deflect attention from where it belongs – irresponsible behavior of our inept state legislators.

    Based on the write above, it does appear his ploy is working.

  2. Does the state need major work in addition to this? Yes, but I am in total favor of this going through. The state is a mess right now and everything won’t be fixed at once.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *