Wonder Lake activist Bob Anderson, Karen and Joe Tirio, plus Dan Aylward and other McHenry County residents took the train to Chicago yesterday to demonstrate against property taxes.
Taxpayers United of America sent the following press release about the event:
Are Illinoisans Preparing for a Tax Revolt?
Illinois Tax Revolution demonstrators at the Thompson Center in Downtown Chicago.
Chicago — On October 12, 2016, dozens of Illinois taxpayers from Taxpayers United of America (TUA) and Illinois Tax Revolution (ITR) converged on the Thompson Center in downtown Chicago to protest devastating property tax hikes, calling for immediate reforms at the local and state level.
ITR co-founders Bob Anderson of Wonder Lake, Joe Tirio of Woodstock, and Dan Aylward of McHenry have organized two previous tax protests since founding their new grassroots movement this past summer.
They made headlines earlier this year when members of the newly formed group began paying the first and second installments of their property tax bills in dollar bills.
Looks like an out-of-focus Joe Tirio, who is running for McHenry County Recorder of Deeds, on the left. His wife, McHenry County College Board member Karen Tirio, can be seen on the right.
Working with TUA, both groups are pursuing systemic changes to local and state government in Illinois, including property tax relief, government pension reform, and consolidating school districts and the roughly 7,000 taxing bodies in Illinois, or eliminating some of them altogether.
“The Cato Institute recently published its annualFreedom in the 50 States analysis, and unfortunately for our residents, Illinois is ranked 44th for fiscal, regulatory, and personal freedom policies overall,” said Jared Labell, executive director of Taxpayers United of America (TUA).
“The study clearly explains why Illinois is one of the most fiscally irresponsible states today. Whether it’s regarding local taxes (ranked 49th), government subsidies (ranked 47th), government debt (ranked 44th), or overall fiscal policy (ranked 48th), Illinois’ state and local governments are getting away with highway robbery every day that they operate on taxpayers’ dollars without implementing long-lasting reforms to solve their perpetual fiscal nightmare.”
“Illinoisans’ residential property-tax burden has risen by 76 percent in the last quarter-century.
“In the span of just a few decades, residential taxpayers now pay more than two-thirds of all property taxes in Illinois, which has the second-highest residential property taxes in the country.”
“We are proud to be working alongside the members of Illinois Tax Revolution in our pursuit of rolling back property taxes, reforming government pensions, and eliminating financially burdensome and unnecessary taxing bodies in Illinois,” said Labell.
“Our concerns will be taken to Springfield during the fall veto session, and we intend to speak with the leadership of the Illinois General Assembly and Gov. Rauner (R) to ensure that government officials hear our grievances loud and clear.
“With the help of our supporters and taxpayers across Illinois, there is no doubt that our message will be heard and addressed.”
“Nearly forty years after TUA’s founder and president, Jim Tobin, led his successful property tax strike, another tax revolt is on the horizon and portends to be more widespread.
“Taxpayer outrage can only be quelled by reducing the tax burden currently smothering average folks across Illinois,” said Labell.
“The politicians would prefer that we remained silent, but we have a message for the taxpayers of Illinois: Taxes are revolting, why aren’t you?”
Its great people are standing up against high taxes.
I went to both organisations web sites but found neither had a written plan to achieve their goals.
What are their goals?
What tax rates are they driving for?
Talk of school consolidation, but no plan or examples of school districts that could be combined to save $$$$?
Frankly my whining on this blog has just as much impact as a org with out a plan.
The Nob’s rant at least has a plan.
Just saying.
Seems to me the people don’t want to raise income taxes, they don’t want to raise property taxes, if the state holds funding from localities then they have to raise property taxes, if localities do get the funding then the state goes into a bigger hole, prevailing wage reform is dead, pension reform is dead, tort reform is dead, medical liability reform is dead, right to work is dead, k-12 education somehow was increased by hundreds of millions, other institutions are still being paid (albeit very slowly through stop gap funding), relying on fixing the fiscal issues solely through (drastic) cuts is off the table, and ending corporate welfare is off the table because they’re “job creators.”
We are billions of dollars in debt, but people want to pay less taxes.
I get that Illinois is a poorly run state, but what specifically do you want done or more importantly is there anything you want done that hasn’t been discussed and totally rejected by Springfield Democrats?
I would suggest moving.
As a second best, I would suggest running for school board and firing some of these striking teachers (if that’s even legal).
Most of all I would suggest moving, but if this Taxpayer group has any other ideas I would love to hear them.
When you see the myriad of administrative staffers we are expected to pay, (and they are all getting wage increases constantly) is it any wonder the state is broke?
Is it any wonder that the hoi poloi are revolting?
The only people with jobs are the government workers (and I use that term very loosely).
Bring back public pillories!
After the November 8, 2016 fall general election and before the new State Representatives and State Senators are sworn in, in early January, there will likely an income tax hike and some sort of “grand bargain.”
The best thing McHenry County taxpayers can do at this point is vote for Republican Steve Reick v Democrat John Bartman for 63rd District State Representative to replace incumbent Jack Franks.
And vote for Republican Allen Skillicorn v Democrat Nancy Zettler for 66th District State Representative to replace incumbent Mike Tryon.
Republican Barb Wheeler has no competition in the 64th District State Representative District.
Republican Steve Andersson has no competition in the 65th District State Representative District.
The Nob has it right.
It’s just a bunch of candidates running for election drumming up free press without actually making any impact or improvements.
Expect this group to vanish after the election.
Actually they got invited to the governors office.
Left word of their concerns (particularly a loophole in school funding and plan to speak with Rauner)
“Working with Taxpayers United of America, both groups are pursuing systemic changes to local and state government in Illinois, including property tax relief, government pension reform, and consolidating school districts and the roughly 7,000 taxing bodies in Illinois, or eliminating some of them altogether.
“We are proud to be working alongside the members of Illinois Tax Revolution in our pursuit of rolling back property taxes, reforming government pensions, and eliminating financially burdensome and unnecessary taxing bodies in Illinois,” said Labell.
“Our concerns will be taken to Springfield during the fall veto session, and we intend to speak with the leadership of the Illinois General Assembly and Gov. Rauner (R) to ensure that government officials hear our grievances loud and clear.
There are indeed specific measures being proposed and attempted.
Examples:
Tirio if elected McHenry County Recorder will eliminate that figurehead patronage post, saving property tax dollars.
Schools are not required to disclose or include unpaid accrued interest when calculating borrowing ability under maximum debt cap ratios. Eliminating this loophole would save property tax dollars.
Tif districts direct property tax dollars out of public scrutiny for benefit of private interests at the whim of politicians. Schools do not object to TIF, even with hollow policy statements to the contrary. Tif districts distort EAV and thus GSA apportionment. Tif reform is an issue specifically addressed by this group.
School consolidation refers to schools running at half of enrollment capacity but at full operating expenses.
There has been tremendous amount of personal time and money spent by this group to educate the public about the insidious destructive effects of property tax rates far higher than national rates.
This group has many specific reform plans, well researched.
They will have more, as they educate taxpayers about complex nefarious tactics used by politicians which have caused such high tax rates.
Taxpayers from different professional backgrounds are the best source of specific policy reform suggestions, but first they must become educated and engaged.
Whining or ranting about such a group undermines credibility of the ranter.
Susan,
You discuss a campaign slogan and items that Taxpayers United has been fighting for many years.
What specifically is the Illinois Tax Revolution group doing?
There are indeed specific measures being proposed and attempted.
Examples:
Tirio if elected McHenry County Recorder will eliminate that figurehead patronage post, saving property tax dollars.
Schools are not required to disclose or include unpaid accrued interest when calculating borrowing ability under maximum debt cap ratios. Eliminating this loophole would save property tax dollars.
Tif districts direct property tax dollars out of public scrutiny for benefit of private interests at the whim of politicians. Schools do not object to TIF, even with hollow policy statements to the contrary. Tif districts distort EAV and thus GSA apportionment. Tif reform is an issue specifically addressed by this group.
School consolidation refers to schools running at half of enrollment capacity but at full operating expenses.
There has been tremendous amount of personal time and money spent by this group to educate the public about the insidious destructive effects of property tax rates far higher than national rates.
This group has many specific reform plans, well researched.
They will have more, as they educate taxpayers about complex nefarious tactics used by politicians which have caused such high tax rates.
Taxpayers from different professional backgrounds are the best source of specific policy reform suggestions, but first they must become educated and engaged.
Whining or ranting about such a group undermines credibility of the ranter.
Tirio if elected will have no more power than he has now to eliminate the position.
HE will however be getting a 6 figure salary paid for by taxpayers.
If he was sincere in his want to eliminate the office, the conversation could have started at any time with the COUNTY BOARD who is the authority to eliminate the position and consolidate the offices.
He CAN NOT ELIMINATE the position.
Period.
It is a campaign slogan pure and simple no different than Franks caliming to lower your taxes by 10%.
ABsurd!
Many counties in Illinois have merged Recorder (patronage position) out if existence.
You KNOW you are making an impact when Trolls are hired to discredit you.
Vaffanculo …. that’s a real good name for you!
Anderson for President!
Not true.
Tirio is promising to try to convince the County Board to put a referendum on the ballot to eliminate the elective position of Recorder of Deeds.
If done, he points out the minimum savings would be the salary and benefits of the elected official.
Jack Franks says he is going to
That is impossible for the County Board Chairman to accomplish.
The County budget, over which he will have some influence, but not even a vote on the Board, amounts to about 10% of each home’s property tax bill.
Eliminate the county board, Jack; there’s your 10% NOW!!!
Because of the funky way county boards are districted, maybe we should be looking to reduce the number of people occupying those seats.
With the current volume of peeps, nothing gets done, but bickering.
Susan, if your argument advocating school consolidation is based on district capacity of students, do you also advocate splitting districts when numbers are higher?
This isn’t something that happens on a whim; its a HUGE undertaking to expand/contract a school district, not to mention short-sighted if only based on current enrollment.
TIFs are a joke because of the criteria used to define “blighted”.
The arcane and useless criteria worked for 1908, but this is 2016.
This needs to be redefined and reformed in full.
Blaming taxing bodies conveniently casts the finger in the wrong direction.
Lawmakers need to fix this.
How does one include unpaid accrued interest?
Most districts put it on their books when the interest is realized – not that there’s that much to begin with given the interest rate levels.
That’s the prudent way of handling finances: book the cash when it’s realized.
You can plan on the interest (or any other revenue) all you want, but give me cash in hand.
1. Not advocating school consolidation. Pointing out there are several schools in Woodstock d200 operating well below enrollment capacity.
2. Taxing bodies have the Power to disrupt TIF formation at a local level. Since the Springfield Legislation Industry doesn’t do business with the taxpaying public, we have no choice but to look for local controls.
3. Read up on ‘capital appreciation bonds’. This mechanism is used to evade statutory borrowing caps. This is the accruing interest of which the community is unaware until (in d200 case) a hidden $64 million dollar debt bomb exploded at maturity
Cities and villages do not have to make use of the Tax Increment Finance Districts.
I am certainly glad I voted against that bill in the 1970’s.
Susan, you need to run for office. You certainly do your homework and know of what you speak!
We have umpteen candidates and only three are involved in this and only one is on the steering committee for this organization and Tirio has his Own organization that successfully fights Govt spending for years.
The group says they’re open to ideas and are not limiting themselves to a tax rate decrease solely.
They plan to talk to the governor about a loophole levy that Voters In Action found.
Taxpayers United of America was also involved and they’re not going anywhere.
In fact they led a protest in Evanston where they got so many people not to pay their taxes in 1977 that They HAD to lower the people’s taxes!
Never say an individual or small group of people can’t Or aren’t making a difference.
‘Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.’
If YOU want to commit to changing our small corner of the world OR just want updates on the successes of each organization:
*Join Bob Anderson’s IL Tax Revolution dot com AND the Facebook page too.
*Join Joe Tirio’s Voters in Action dot com AND their Facebook page as well.
Chico you must be a Democrat because math eludes you!
Eliminating half the board is.
It up to Lying Jack Franks, furthermore that would not come close to lowering taxpayers R.E. tax bills by 10%.
The whole county’s portion of our tax.
I’ll is only 10%.
In order to lower tax bills by 10% that means ALL services, salaries, county buildings etc would have to cease existing.
And ‘Vaffancyllo’, you’ve just been educated by Cal, other counties, and Tirio.
Let’s hope you stop sounding idiotic.
Asking for specifics isn’t ranting, Susan.
I support Tirio’s plan to merge the offices, but how much money are we talking about with that?
Joe Tirio would tell you it’s not a lot.
Schools make up roughly 60 percent of the property tax bill, so maybe consolidation is part of the plan.
TIFs are a disaster too.
So you’re not wrong about any of that stuff, but I’d just like to hear people say what they are going to do.
Otherwise it just looks like *they* are ranting about taxes without any plans.
And how does the state government tie into school consolidation or TIFs?
Aren’t those local issues?
I remember you hounding Serwatka for specifics even though I assume you’re both on the same side, and I’m on your side as well.