What To Do about Townships…If Anything

In Crystal Lake Community High School debate class with Mr. Tarpley, we were taught that the affirmative had the burden of proof.

In other words, in making the case for change, one has the duty to prove one’s case.

So far, proponents of township consolidation have not done so.

Oh, one can look at tiny Burton Township in the northwest corner of McHenry County and argue that it should be combined with Richmond.

A map of McHenry County showing its seventeen townships, plus municipalities.

A map of McHenry County showing its seventeen townships, plus municipalities.

The resulting township would be the same size as three of the most-populated townships located south of it–McHenry, Nunda and Algonquin.

And I can even give a documented argument that township assessors were more accurate when the size of the township was over 5,000 people than under.

Algonquin Township Assessor Forrest Hare arrayed data to show that in the 1970’s.

My guess the reason was that townships over 5,000 people could afford a full-time assessor, who would generally do a better job than a part-time assessor.

Vague claims are made by proponents of township consolidation that money will be saved.

But I have seen no study comparing costs and benefits.

It’s an OK political issue.

Negative publicity about townships in Cook County has been going on for decades.

Townships that have boundaries the same as their underlying city, e.g., Evanston Township, have been abolished.

No such similar townships exist in McHenry County.

If Crystal Lake had an underlying township with the same boundaries as the city, could it be abolished?

Certainly, there would be no problems with streets.

And the minor amount of public assistance provided could be shifted by intergovernmental agreement to a neighboring township or, by legislation, to the Department of Public Aid.

McHenry County’s Supervisor of Assessments could be delegated the assessing function.

And there would be no need for a separate township board, plus a city council.

But’s that not the case…although I guess in a township consolidation map put forth by the County Board, a coterminous township Crystal Lake Township could be proposed.

Where's the Beef?

“Where’s the Beef?” in the township consolidation plan?

Such a township should include surrounded subdivisions like the Crystal Lake Manor, forcing Crystal Lake to provide the services and, hopefully, finally annexing the property

That would require diminishing the sizes of Algonquin, Dorr, Grafton and Nunda Townships, however.

The only services required by law these current townships provide within Crystal Lake city limits are assessments and a tiny bit of public assistance.

Still, apparently no attempt has been made by township consolidation proponents to compare the cost per lane mile of maintaining roads by county, township and municipal governments.

In short, my question is

Where is the cost-benefit study to support the proposal to consolidation?

Or to put in the language of the early 1980’s Wendy’s ad:

Where’s the beef?

= = = = =
Tuesday at 9:30 in McHenry County’s Administration building the Township Consolidation Committee will hold a meeting.


Comments

What To Do about Townships…If Anything — 38 Comments

  1. Well said Cal.

    There should of been prove of savings before a committee was even formed. Also why no petition like almost every other group has to have?

    Bottom line is before any more of our tax money is used/wasted, where are the facts and numbers to support larger gov agencies that historically have always cost more?

  2. Spot on Cal & Nob…

    From what I am hearing, Mr. Shorten has a document that is, or will be, used during the taskforce discussions.

    Nob, if… the proponents did their own referenda, they would have to do a little work… e.g. run petitions.

    This way, the gullible county board members will put it forward as “their referenda.”

    They have the legal staff, money and method for the task.

    It will be interesting to see how the taskforce justifies putting forth the resolution initiating the referendum.

    Also, how interesting that the “new kids” on the block, the “county board,” are the ones who will make the “consolidation” recommendations.

    Bureaucrats at their best… once again!

  3. Ersel, IMO this is all about a power grab.

    Mostly about Alg Twh.

    Thing is they will possibly be giving more power to the Alg Twh elected.

    Ya man!

  4. I would like to see an assessment of money saved both ways if we kept townships or abolish them, but who will pay for this study when money is tight.

    I do know that if you live in an unincorporated area surrounded by mostly city you seem to get less services from the township.

    The City of McHenry is not fixing Lincoln Rd even though we have two schools, subdivisions and lots of traffic while the township is fixing it from Chapel Hill to Cuhlman.

    When I called the township to ask for mosquito spraying and the Clark Pest Control mailbox was full they told me to call the county who said they don’t do that, but someone is responsible and probably is paid a good amount in a contract.

    Why not get rid of cities and keep townships?

  5. Maybe a nitpick, but I don’t think it’s logically consistent to always complain about the # of units of government and then complain when people offer proposals to reduce a large number of them.

    The 7000 number gets winged around all the time, and townships make up more than 20 percent of that number.

    Shorten and Co. are trying to slash the townships to less than half of what they are now.

    I understand the argument about not wanting to consolidate (it centralizes power, the government closest to home is the best) and I think it has merit, but I think if you are going to defend the institution of townships, maybe you shouldn’t also use the 7000 number.

    You have to decide if the number itself is problematic or not, and if you think the units of government is a problem, but townships are good, then identify some other units of government that aren’t good.

  6. I like that get rid of cities and keep townships.

    Sounds like merry ol’ England.

  7. And then here’s a way to find out if the number of units of government itself is a problem.

    Identify all the governments you want to get rid of.

    Find out if that number is the difference between Illinois and the next state (I think PA).

    In other words, find out if eliminating all the units of government you deem unnecessary and wasteful would change our ranking of having the most governments in the country.

    I’m assuming the argument you have against consolidating townships would apply to counties, cities, etc., so you wouldn’t want to consolidate those.

    If that is the case, the number is pointless.

    And when township critics say “let another government take on that task” and you hear township supporters say “it’s best that a government has fewer tasks, and it’s best it serves a small area” then wouldn’t that imply having more numerous governments, doing fewer tasks, and serving smaller geographic areas would actually be good?

    So then should we be celebrating the number of governments we have or trying to increase them?

    I guess my point in all of this is that people should try being more consistent on their talking points.

  8. Joe if we are talking inefficent always look to the bigger gov agencies.

    Fed 18T in debt and counting.

    Then the State County and so forth. Wis has the counties maintain the freeways and state roads and for less than IDOT does here.

    Since our state has cut workers state roads plowing has gone to ..

  9. How is it possible that you will howl about not wanting to consolidate townships and won’t mention on this blog that less than 5 days ago, Mike Tryon said he would support tax increases?

  10. The townships in McHenry County (and just about everywhere if not everywhere) do not have union labor and thus do not have collective bargaining agreements.

    The highest cost in any government unit is (or almost always is) labor.

    Also, some of the smaller townships do not participate in the IMRF pension fund, and thus do not participate in any public sector pension fund, another labor cost.

    That being said, townships have the potential to waste money and abuse power, they still need a watchdog.

    Rather than trying to consolidate townships better effort would probably be to promote transparency of townships, including submitting articles to this blog and the newspapers.

    For instance, advocate the district to post electronic board packets and videotaped board meetings online.

    Off all the government waste in Illinois, townships would generally seem to fall in the bottom 1/2 of the barrel.

    In the more rural counties of Illinois, multi-township assessment districts are common, whereas two or more townships share an assessor, and that’s mandated for townships with a population under 1,000.

    In terms of road construction costs a township did a study (obviously a bias there but anyone could do a comparison) which showed that cost per mile of townships to maintain roads is less than county and state.

    However, county and state roads are generally larger heavier traffic, not sure if an offset was considered to mitigate that factor.

    The more money a taxing district spends, the more potential for abuse.

    So, one can obtain from the County treasurer a spreadsheet version of the property tax distribution report of all taxing districts (including the human readable name of the district not just its numeric code) and their iterations including TIFs and sort from highest to lowest tax receipts.

    A more detailed version of the report listing each fund is also helpful, especially tracking increases over time in pensions (school district TRS pension contributions not a line item on such a report though).

    The number of units of government is a significant problem, but there are bigger problems, such as pensions, retiree healthcare, overly labor friendly state laws including collective bargaining and mediation and arbitration, perks and of career pay hikes for senior management, etc.

    The school districts are the biggest line item on the property tax bill, and that doesn’t include the state contribution to the pension fund which comes from state revenues such as income tax dollars, yet most school districts have no watchdog.

    And Rauner and the Generally Assembly have both advocated to increase public education spending while reducing most other areas are under more scrutiny.

    Education is where the action is at.

  11. Never say never.

    Rumor has it the employees at Nunda Township are talking with local 150 about organizing.

    Apparently workers are tired of Lesperance making up the “rules” as he goes…

  12. The Illinois Comptroller Warehouse gathers data from townships and other taxing districts.

    http://www.warehouse.illinoiscomptroller.com
    http://www.illinoiscomptroller.com

    Type in a keyword and select the desired district.

    There are several options immediately apparent to the viewer such as AFR, Compare Data to other Districts, Annual Audits.

    Not so obvious, click on “Show Me the Data” and scroll to the bottom of the screen for even more options:
    – Contact Information
    – FY End, Debt, TIF, Pension/Retirement
    – Population, EAV, and Employees
    – Component Units and Appropriations
    – Payments to Other Governments
    – Fund Listing and Account Groups
    – Governmental Entities
    – Reporting
    – Assets
    – Revenues
    – Expenditures
    – Fund Balance
    – Indebtedness
    – Pension Funds / Retirement Benefits
    – Capital Outlay
    – Audit Requirement and CPA Validation Check

    With that data, plus Open the Books, plus Better Government Association, plus FOIA, plus the taxing district website, plus Illinois Policy Institute, plus Family Taxpayers / Champion News (lots of history there not a lot of current info), there is a lot more information readily available to the public than even a few years ago.

    Pick a taxing district on your property tax bill, pension fund, retiree healthcare fund, state agency, or Federal government agency, etc. and start educating yourself and hopefully others.

    Then taxpayers have a better chance to chip away at taxes, debt, and liabilities.

    Politicians have the ability to tinker with taxes, debt, & liabilities.

    Current taxes are the most visible to taxpayers.

    Debt is the next most visible.

    Liabilities have the least visibility and greatest potential for political abuse, due to the ability of politicians to play various games such as hike benefits now while simultaneously underfunding now the future liability payouts, questionable actuarial assumptions, clear disclosure to the public of the current status and future risks, etc.

    That latter occurred at the state level in Illinois.

    In 2013 Illinois settled with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) over questionable pension disclosures to bond investors.

    To the extent politicians have not told bondholders and taxpayers the full story, taxpayers and investors lose a degree of trust and faith in government itself.

    Just as with individual debt, there is a limit to government debt.

    Government debt is more complicated and has more variables than individual debt, and therefore is not as easily understood.

    And unfunded liabilities are even more complicated as individuals don’t personally hold underfunded liabilities and retiree healthcare.

    So debt and liabilities are important aspects of where to spend ones time when considering which units of government to consolidate and the actual cost of government to taxpayers.

    Townships tend to not have much debt and underfunded liabilities.

    Debt and underfunded liabilities are akin to buy now, pay later.

    How much is sustainable is a matter of interpretation.

    A state can issue as much debt and liabilities as its citizens will allow.

    Liabilities have no direct investors participating in a market, a factor in understanding their risk.

    Pension and retiree healthcare benefits can be as high as taxpayers allow.

    The underfunded portion of pension and retiree healthcare liabilities can be as high as taxpayers allow.

    Liabilities are held in check by bond investors to the degree bond investors perceive unfunded pension and retiree healthcare liabilities to be a threat to repayment on their bonds, resulting in a no investment decision or a decision to demand a higher bond interest rate.

    Since hiked pension benefits, hiked pension contributions, and underfunded pensions are the biggest public sector problem in the state, look at those taxing districts participating in the public sector pension funds.

    The largest public sector pension fund in Illinois is the teacher and administrator pension fund, TRS.

    The public sector pension fund in which townships participate is IMRF.

    Not all townships participate in IMRF though.

    IMRF has its problems.

    A good report is a history of employer and employee contributions from the taxing district to IMRF.

    Many taxing districts have had hiked IMRF contributions.

    The IMRF accrual rate for townships is:
    Fixed Benefit Formula:
    1.667% for first 15 years
    2.0% for over 15 years.

    With the maximum percentage of final average salary being 75%.

    So let’s figure out how many years it takes to arrive at 75%.

    .01667 x 15 = .25.

    .75 – .25 = .50

    .50 / .02 = 25.

    25 + 15 = 40.

    So after 40 years the employee receives a pension of 75% of final average salary.

    So begin working out of college at 21, retire at 61.

    Begin working out of high school at 18, retire at 58.

    Plus employees contributing to the IMRF pension fund, also contribute to Social Security, and thus also receive Social Security, in addition to their IMRF pension.

    Final average salary for township employees is the highest 48 consecutive months in last 120 months.

    That’s a very good pension plan.

    Not quite as good as the teacher and administrator pension plan (TRS), which has an accrual rate for each year of 2.2% which means after 34 years one hits the 75% maximum of final average salary.

    .75 / .022 = 34

    Technically full retirement for teachers and administrators is after 35 years worked.

    But they can exchange up to two years worked for two years of service credit.

    So then they can retire after 34 years worked.

    TRS (teacher and administrator pension fund) also has a very generous Early Retirement Option (ERO).

    There are two other IMRF pension funds for special categories of workers, that being the Sheriff Law Enforcement Plan (SLEP) and Elected County Official (ECO).

    All the above refers to Tier 1 (Tier I) benefits for employees who began their career prior to January 1, 2011.

    Employees beginning their career after January 1, 2011 participate in Tier 2 (Tier II).

  13. Oops.

    Near the end of the last post.

    “But they can exchange up to two years worked for two years of service credit.”

    They meaning teachers and administrators.

    Should be.

    But they can exchange up to 2 years of accumulated sick leave (340 days) for two years of service credit.

    Actually let’s think about that.

    340 days / 34 years = 10 sick days per year.

    Most teacher collective bargaining agreements now provide more than 10 sick days per year.

    12 seems pretty common, have seen 15.

    A teacher year according to the TRS pension fund is 170 days.

    A teacher year according to the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) is even more I believe.

    It would have to be since the kids are in school more than 170 days a year.

    A student year is 45 days per quarter which is 180 days per year, but many if not most schools at least in the Chicagoland area have a mixture of late starts, early dismissals, assemblies, and some fun days not to mention the first and last day of school; not to mention seniors who seem to stop going to school a week or two before they graduate in most if not all high schools in the area.

    Teachers are required to attend institute days and such when kids have off.

    In the past in many if not most districts that used to be a joke with the amount of hours they were required to attend those days and the classes they could take, again, that seems to have been reigned in a bit.

    But the point is that for the number of days a teacher actually is required to work according to their collective bargaining agreement (can’t make a teacher do anything not in the collective bargaining agreement and state law), 10 or 12 or 15 sick days is crazy.

    Being generous 185 days / 5 days per week = 37 weeks.

    There are 52 weeks a year.

    52 – 37 = 15 weeks teacher does not work.

    Plus at least 2 weeks of sick days (use or roll over not use or lose).

    15 + 2 = 17 weeks teacher does not work in terms of compensation (teacher is compensated one way or another for unused sick days at the end of their career, up to 340 days).

    15 x 5 = 75 weekdays per year a teacher does not work.

    17 x 5 = 85 days a per year a teacher does not work in terms of compensation as a teacher is somehow reimbursed for unused sick days at the end of the career, meaning, a teacher either takes the sick day and does not work, or does not take the sick day and gets reimbursed for it at the end of their career.

    And the reimbursement rate if the unused sick day is exchanged for cash instead of years of service credit, is the ending salary of the teacher or administrator.

    So to reign in government costs, look at the most powerful block of voters, those in public education.

  14. I absolutely agree that structural problems with entitlements are one of the most, if not the most, pressing issue of this state, Mark.

    Whether the legislature made up of Democratic supermajorities in both chambers who are beholden to unions will do anything meaningful, I am very skeptical about.

    Nonetheless, we should remain vigilant.

  15. We shouldn’t be looking at Wisconsin as our role model.

    Incomes of families have gone down 14.5 % since 1999.

    Walker has made Wisconsin 35th in job growth and mostly low paying jobs.

    He is also gutting education including research programs which net money at U of Wisconsin Madison.

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/wisconsin/130325653.html

  16. Also remember every government unit we have we have another higher paid administrator and more pensions and more taxes so if you really are fiscally conservative we should consolidate governments in Illinois.

  17. http://www.deptofnumbers.com/income/illinois/
    Median family income in Illinois is much higher than Wisconsin.

    We need to pay our debts each year as politicians of both parties are guilty of kicking their pension debt down the road and it is coming home to roost.

    Also Illinois has a low flat income tax which causes more inequality.

  18. Unions were complicit in kicking the pension funding can down the road so some of the funds could be diverted to pay hikes.

    Not to mention the unions supported legislative pension benefit hikes even though pensions were already underfunded and the existing year’s pension contribution was shorted or skipped.

    When is the last time during the last 45 years unions went on strike because pensions were being underfunded?

    Never.

    Not once.

    But they did strike to get higher pay, which increased the pension contribution.

    The different between the % decrease of IL & WI median household income on the deptofnumbers website during that 2005 – 2013 timeframe is .9%.

    Maybe the difference is due to a functional sustainable government vs a dysfunctional unsustainable government where adjustments were made to have a sustainable government.

    Illinois has not truly balanced a budget since when?

    Illinois has the most unionized state workforce in the United States, or close to it, over 90%, it was so bad Quinn was trying to decertify some of the state union workers asserting they should be classified as managers with supervisory duties, i.e. someone had to supervise the union workers not everyone be part of the gig.

    Illinois is the poster child for bad dysfunctional government.

  19. I agree that unions should have been more responsible.

    When FDR made social security and was pro union it was for private unions.

    He did not believe public workers like teachers, police and firemen should be unionized because it brought conflict between taxpayers.

    Kennedy actually unionized them with a federal order and that was a big mistake.

    I also think that if a person is making a reasonable pension and not a ridiculous one they earned it, but changes over time and colas, etc make it impossible for taxpayers to pay these benefits.

    A $60,000 cap should be put on public unions with no colas (most private unions don’t get them) and the beneficiary should only be the spouse.

    A lot of private unions only give one half to the spouse.

    Rauner is not talking about compromises.

    The top government worker is a doctor making over $450,000 per year who has been hired back by the State of Illinois and will earn a higher pension.

    You should only qualify for one pension.

    Also instead of taxing pensions in Illinois maybe Illinois should tax pensioners that move out of Illinois.

    If Illinois taxpayers are paying for their retirement and they are not supporting Illinois property and sales tax they should automatically get a 15% tax.

  20. karma, you really need to learn way more about what consolidation actually will do. Also IMRF, which local gov employees get, the surviving spouse only gets 50%.

  21. That’s great but SURS I think does pass on to spouse and children and gets a 3% cola yearly.

    The reason Illinois has so many taxing bodies is when they were at tax cap they just created another taxing body.

    Let someone get all of the facts out so people can make a logical decision but everyone wants to defend their benefits and don’t care about other people’s benefits.

  22. State and local union workers fall under state union laws.

    Federal union workers fall under Federal union laws.

    Two different sets of laws.

    The Illinois state union laws heavily favor labor, moreso than Federal labor laws.

    The SURS death benefits have a lot of variations depending if death occurred while working, after working before retired, during retirement, if a lump sum is taken, years of service, spouse age, child’s age, etc.; but there is a 3% COLA.

    Illinois is a state budget, too many funds in the state budget, labor law, pension & retiree healthcare law, too many pension funds, too many units of government, too many exceptions to the aforementioned, nutcase General Assembly policies with seemingly endless shell bills, nightmare.

    It’s in complete disarray.

  23. They created more taxing bodies because of legal boundaries mostly.

    Mosquitoes, water, sewer and other agencies don’t follow municipal borders.

    Metra, RTA, on and on.

  24. We could make a law that all taxing bodies would have to follow township boundaries.

    That way Evergreen Park would not have four taxing bodies for mosquito abatement while a person was hospitalized six months for contacting West Nile Virus (60% of those bodies cost were employees and benefits) but they did not get the job done.

  25. If the only folks who actually care are the same few commentors on every township story it looks like townships will be consolidated soon.

  26. 22 You should have been at the meeting this morning.

    Good turnout.

    The Task Force is a good display of the level of ineptitude which exists within the County Board.

    Shorten embarrassed himself by admitting he was not really prepared for the meeting because of adult beverage consumption.

    Donna Kurtz’s statements and questions displayed why she has no business being on the Task Force and Schofield showed why she should not be elected to Springfield.

    imo.

  27. I attended the meeting and nearly everyone in the audience who spoke was against consolidation except for Bob Anderson.

    The pro-consolidation side really took a shellacking.

  28. I also was at the meeting showed what level of incompetence we have from the members of the county board.

    The young lady that was the chairman had no business being a chairman as she did not have control of anything that went on .

    the members on the task force really were not ready to show how any of this would work .

    the consolidators only showed us that they have been listening to the friendly barber from Wonder Lake too much.

    The representative from the Townships on the task force was the only one to make any sense.

    Hopefully the County Board will see through all the smoke and mirrors and not even waste our time as voters by putting this foolishness on the ballot.

  29. Were there any handouts, presentations, or reports at the county board meeting about township consolidation?

    Powerpoint presentations at a public meeting can be obtained via FOIA.

    Actually the county or any governmental unit should in the name of transparency automatically put any of the above on their website.

  30. Agreed Grumpy.

    That meeting had a lot of bloviating.

    A lot of talking, but not much said.

    It was really embarrassing how ill prepared Donna and Mike were.

    Mike has been pushing this for MONTHS.

    For him to have nothing was sad.

    The more I learn about this issue, the more I move against it.

    It’s something that sounds good as a talking point or looks good on paper, but upon further analysis it starts to break down.

    I think it would be better to get the studies BEFORE recommending the County Board pass this on to voters.

    Voters can be wooed very easily when they hear words like “consolidation”.

    One of the things I really liked was when someone said, “If consolidation is so good, why don’t we consolidate McHenry, Cook, and Lake counties?”

    I really think Bob Anderson means well, but unfortunately I think he is being used as “useful idiot” by some people.

    Bob’s shtick is he’s against townships, but consolidating townships and abolishing townships are two different issues.

    Being against townships need not bring you to conclude less townships but ones that serve larger populations and geographic areas are any better.

    (Anarchists don’t propose a one world government.)

    If Bob’s motive for supporting this is that he thinks consolidating townships is a stepping stone towards getting rid of townships, I would suggest that he’s mistaken.

    Whatever nepotism or cronyism you see in townships is likely to intensify with consolidation.

    You will have bigger, more powerful political machines that are less accountable.

    And where you have wage and tax discrepancies between multiple townships, expect the pricier one to be adopted by the new township — not a balance between the two.

    One last thing, it seems odd to suggest that if two townships get lumped together they will start doing a better job at looking over inventories and reigning in costs.

    Wouldn’t it be easier to do that when you’re managing a smaller inventory and when you have more watchdogs per township official?

  31. I should of brought a prepared text with me as I’m a poor public speaker and some times have a problem controlling my emotions.

    OH WELL, here is what I should of said:

    We need some government, how much will be debated till the end of the earth.

    As tax payers we must take away some of the power/decision making away from our elected officials, spending and setting tax rates.

    These two issues were a problem that were never addressed properly when the Constitution was written, but should have been, but the partisan nonsense started already way back then of over spending and borrowing to buy votes.

    Spending must always match actual revenue available at the time, ie what we are willing to give in the form of taxation.

    Borrowing should only be allowed for World Wars, not police actions like we’ve had since 1945. Even weather disasters should be budgeted for, they’re regular enough, and we should be able to budget for them to some degree.

    Individual Income tax rates and Property tax rates should not be roller coasters of ever changing rates that just leads to insecurity for the tax payer not knowing what is coming next from the elected to buy votes.

    The class warfare thing must be put in the grave; it’s just dividing the country more and could lead to more and more divisive actions in the future.

    We all need skin in the game, and it should be equal skin.

    I would propose we force our elected by Petition, which is allowed in the constitution, to enact a Balanced Budget Amendment that has the income tax rate and/or property tax rate control tied to it.

    The Congress, State, and Local gov agencies will only be allowed to adjust the income or property tax rates after a 2/3 approval vote within its legal boundary, ¾ vote would be better.

    Our choice with a strong majority vote behind changes, not the Pacs controlling the partisan as the wind blows hacks.

    I’d prefer a Flat income tax with no deductions at least till we start paying off the debt in a manner that has a time limit attached to it.

    Gov agencies that use Property taxes should have no levy power, whatever the home value up or down; the rate we voted on determines what is paid in taxes.

    Not enough as most elected seem to keep saying, then come to us with your yearly recommendations and let us vote 2/3 for any change from the year before.

    No more passing on our debt to future generations should be allowed.

    We borrow almost 40% for the Fed Gov now that must stop ASAP.

    To not propel the economy into the dumpster any farther, we should demand freezing the spending at the 2014 rates or a small cost of living, every year till spending is lower than actual revenue.

    We can budget a pay back of the added debt which will be pushing 20T by then.

    Yawn.

    I listening for other suggestions, got one?

  32. There was no cost justification for consolidating specific townships presented at the meeting?

    85 of the 102 Illinois counties have township government which number about 1,430.

    The counties that don’t have townships have precincts that may perform some of the same functions as a township, but really the two are quite different in general.

    Illinois was first settled from the south by way of Kentucky and Tennessee, whereas townships were traditionally from the northeast and brought along by that immigration pattern which escalated by way of the Great Lakes during the canal boom era.

    Regarding Mosquito Abatement Districts.

    There are 20 Mosquito Abatement Districts in Illinois.

    Alexander County
    Cairo Mosquito Abatement District

    Cook County
    Des Plaines Valley Mosquito Abatement District
    North Shore Mosquito Abatement District
    Northwest Mosquito Abatement District
    South Cook Mosquito Abatement District

    DuPage County
    Clarendon Blackhawk Mosquito Abatement District
    Glen Ellyn Mosquito Abatement District
    West Chicago Mosquito Abatement District
    Wheaton Mosquito Abatement District

    Fayette County
    Fayette Mosquito Abatement District

    Franklin County
    Franklin Mosquito Abatement District

    Jackson County
    Carbondale #1 Mosquito Abatement District

    Lake County
    Lake Bluff Mosquito Abatement District
    Southlake Mosquito Abatement District

    Macon County
    Macon Mosquito Abatement District

    St. Clair County
    Dupo Mosquito Abatement District

    Stephenson County
    Freeport Mosquito Abatement District

    Will County
    Reed Twp Mosquito Abatement District
    Romeoville Mosquito Abatement District

    Williamson County
    Herrin Mosquito Abatement District

  33. Not really Mark.

    A touch about inefficiencies with handing out $$$$$ by the Supervisors, but not much else.

    The Pro side was almost totally unprepared over all.

    First meeting, the battle is far from over.

    If the Pro side doesn’t start proving their case, the county board should never put this on the ballet, and if needed to for transparencies, go to great length to explain why.

    Where’s the Beef, as Cal said at the meeting.

  34. Per 60 ILCS 1, this “process” is supposed to commence when “three-fourths or more of the voters residing in the territory petition for a new township” to the County.

    The methods of consolidation outlined in the statute are supposed to be chosen AFTER the County receives the above public petition to authorize them to act.

    Do Goettemoeller, Mike Shorten, and Donna Kurtz have such a petition?

    Or will they just ignore that section of state law and thereby leave themselves and McHenry County open to a potential lawsuit..?

  35. Cal

    One of your commenters used the name “Robert H” with respect to a comment above concerning Local 150.

    I am not the author of that comment.

    It is well known that I have fought against local 150 on numerous occasions.

    For that reason I see “Robert H”‘s comment as clearly designed to erroneously play on my name and practice.

    I could care less about Local 150 and their desperate attempts to grow membership when their LM-2 reports show declines in membership over the years.

    The reality is the tide is changing and we the people who pay our taxes deserve performance from employees of local government.

    The work rules of a typical union contract promote mediocre work ethic and increse expense to the employer.

    This is why Governor Rauner has advanced his turn around agenda to allow us, the citizens, to determine if we are going to adopt prevailing wage (union determined wages) or let the free market determine wages and benefits for actual work performed.

    Similarly, eliminitating collective bargaining for government work is supported because there is no need to organize government employees except to extract more money to support union management.

    By this post I am asking you to forward to me the email address of the purported “Robert H” so that I can discuss the posting with its author.

    The real Robert T. Hanlon

  36. Since McHenry County has taken the “initiative” on “streamlining” local government, will they also be looking at consolidating McHenry County’s TWENTY-NINE villages and cities?

    Does it make sense to have THAT many in one County?

    And does anyone have the totals on their budgets, employees, and union contracts..?

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