Now retired Wonder Lake barber Bob Anderson has been known as an opponent of township government.
The former McHenry Township Trustee got a referendum on the ballot in the 1980’s to abolish all townships in McHenry County.
It lost, but caught the attention of township supporters in the Illinois General Assembly, where legislation passed making it virtually impossible for such a referendum to be held again.
Anderson joined forces with McHenry Township Republican Precinct Committeemen and, when his faction gained control, they nominated him and others to run for township office.
While the GOP was defeated by the incumbent Township Supervisor and Road Commission, all four GOP Trustee candidates won, giving them control of the Township Board.
There, they put a referendum on the ballot to abolish their township government.
It failed…by a lot.
Now, out of office and not cutting hair, Anderson has broadened his target beyond township government.
The former Marine is going statewide to publicize the enormous multiplicity of local governmental units.
When I was Stste Representative I used to challenge people to name all the local governments to which thehy paid property taxes.
I don’t think anyone succeeded in identifying them all.
The problem, obviously, is that it is impossible to keep track of what the people running one’s local government are doing.
How can one even know the officials when one cannot even name all of one’s tax districts?
Here are the graphics that Anderson has developed to make his case that Illinois needs to shrink the number of local tax districts.
Note that he does not target township government.
McHenry County has 17 townships.
What functions do each of them perform?
If all of these townships were disbanded, who would perform the functions, assuming all functions are wanted and useful?
The County Government would have to take over supervision and management of the functions.
How about consolidating the 17 townships to 8, or 4?
Consolidation would reduce some costs.
Per Google:
llinois has 1,431 townships. Some of these townships are coterminous, which means their jurisdictions have the same boundaries as a municipality. Some areas have multiple townships within a municipality, while other townships exist in rural areas. Seventeen of Illinois’ counties have no township.
wow it’s like deja vu all over again…
I do agree with Bob that Illinois has too many layers of government. It adds a lot of costs which are passed on to taxpayers. I wouldn’t say TOWNSHIPS are the object of my scorn or they are the worst actors, but if we can function without them then why shouldn’t we? Aren’t there about 30 states that do not have townships? Overall, it seems Bob’s rage is misplaced. Wouldn’t it be better to split Illinois into multiple states rather than tinkering around with townships?
@bred winner, that’s not a bad idea, but it meets resistance from voters. Anytime you are trying to consolidate two townships, what happens is the people in the township with lower taxes oppose joining a township where they tax/spend more, and that is understandable. Which goes back to my point that tinkering with townships is not a silver bullet to Illinois’ problems. You’re talking like 3 percent of property tax bill, and like you said those expenses might just get passed to the county (where labor costs might even be higher).
I’d consider it but there has to be something else we can do to cut costs. Bob is a good guy but a bit myopic. He is totally obsessed with townships.
Outside Cook County, townships are mandated to perform three (3) essential duties: (1) township highways, (2) General Assistance, and (3) real estate appraisal for property tax purposes. (Real estate tax appraisal in Cook County is performed by the county.) All of these are state mandated functions, so some local quasi-municipal governmental unit has to perform them. If townships within a county are dissolved, those state mandated functions don’t disappear, they simply, per state law, migrate upstream.
The 17 so-called “commission counties” (primarily in the deep southern portion of the State) have no townships because that locale was primarily populated by folks migrating from the South (most of the earliest settlers). Those folks had no tradition of township government (don’t need town meetings on plantations) and county organization was all they knew. It wasn’t until after statehood that migration into the State from the Northeast brought folks who had a tradition of township government; they lobbied for and got a change in the 1848 Constitution permitting township organization.
And the proliferation of governmental units was largely an outcome of the tax limits imposed on counties under the 1870 Constitution. Let’s say some folks in a part of the county want a mosquito abatement district. Well, fine, but whose gonna impose a tax to pay for such service ? The county seems the logical choice (such proposed districts rarely being coterminous with other local quasi-governmental units). But counties under tax limits squeal like stuck pigs to any notion of legislation placing more taxing burdens which may decrease taxing capacity for duties counties deem more essential to their basic functions. What’s the solution ? Adopt legislation allowing the creation of a special district with its own taxing authority.
There are already 17 counties In IL that have ditched Townships entirely.
MONEY IS SAVED and The World has Not stopped.
https://www.civicfed.org/iifs/blog/inventory-local-governments-illinois-townships
Another Township rats’ nest o’ nepotism, corruption and waste bites the dust:
WEST PEORIA — Voters here have overwhelmingly supported a move to dissolve their township and merge its services into the city that shares the same boundaries.
With all four West Peoria precincts reporting, the referendum passed 1,159 to 817, and sealed a move that has been several years in the making.
“I’m thrilled that people paid attention and realized the value of eliminating the township,” said Sharon Kennedy, the township supervisor.
Kennedy admits she ran for the job just to dissolve the township, which she says has outlived its time. The township, she said, no longer has a township collector to receive tax payments, nor does it have an assessor to determine the value of properties. Both functions are handled by Peoria County staff.
Township trustees decided in August to put the proposal on the ballot as a way to save taxpayers money. The city of West Peoria would handle the property taxes and the township assets. City officials would also be responsible for distribution of the general assistance grants that help those residents who need help with rent and other bills.
https://www.pjstar.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/11/04/voters-back-dissolving-west-peoria-township-and-merging-with-its-city/114682036/
Bred:
Townships perform the following functions:
Maintain township owned roads. These include rural roads and roads to unincorporated subdivisions. This is handled by the Road District which is not technically a part of township government. This made a lot of sense in the 19th century when the roads were dirt and gravel and the only means of transport was the horse. You literally couldn’t maintain roads over long distances so smaller subdivisions were needed. Now one of the main functions is snow plowing plus pot hole repairs. Snow plowing can be done more efficiently if the plow doesn’t have to stop at the township line and turn around. Municipalities also are much larger and eat up township roads turning them into disconnected patchworks.
Assess property for taxes. This is done by the Assessor. Back in the day, the Assessor had to physically travel to each property to see if they had added a chicken coop and had to do that by horse and buggy. He kept the records in his hatband. So again he had to be able to get around in a smaller area and be able to keep a certain amount of information in his head. Today we have spies in the sky who can spot when you put out a planter box and assessments are computerized. Townships with smaller populations only employ the assessor on a part time basis so there is less professionalism. Different township assessors assess property differently so people have to appeal to the county to try and equalize their assessments.
Maintain township cemetaries. These were small plots of land, usually a fraction of an acre, that were used for burials. People who wanted to visit their loved ones were limited to horse transport so they needed to be close by. They were superceeded by private cemetaries in the 20th century. There is a huge county cemetary that is virtually never used and which people with cars could easily visit.
Most townships just employ landscape services to keep the lawns mowed on these postage stamps.
Distribute interim public assistance. This was created in the days before we had state and federal safety nets. Now it has been relegated to providing a single check to people while they are waiting for the other programs to process their applications. Duplicate work is done by the township to develop file information on applicants. Algonquin Township, which has the most population in the county, only gets about 30 applications a year, and employs a staff person to handle them.
That is pretty much it.
Everything else, from mosquito abatement to victory gardens, food shelves, and chair yoga classes have been added on in more recent years to give the townships something to do.
All of that could be done more efficiently and effectively by some combination of county, municipal, park district local entities, particularly in areas where municipalities have swallowed up most of the unincorporated land.
A study done in 2002 for Cook County showed that there would be a 50% tax savings if this were done, at least in townships that had little unincorporated land left, similar to Algonquin Township today.
My suggestion is that the legislature pass a law providing that a township would automatically go out of existence when a certain percentage of it’s territory came under municipal jurisdiction, and that the office of an elected County Assessor be established to eliminate township assessors in all township regardless of population.
Of course the all powerful Township Officials Of Illinois (TOI) will prevent that from ever happening.
As usual, Innocent Primate doesn’t know what he’s babbling about.
The many Illinois counties that scotched the venomous snakes of those 281 abolished townships did so in the 1930s.
Every County in Illinois started with townships in the late 1840s.
Contrary to what the idiot Innocent Chimp implies, the ‘southerners’ who populated the central and southern counties did not forego establishing them.
Indiana abolished almost all of their township assessors.
They found out that assessors were giving themselves, kin, pals and political supporters huge property tax reductions.
The scandal shocked the Indiana state legislature to ax almost all of them (950) in 2008.
The 13 exceptions were black majority townships for some reason.
https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/indiana-house-backs-abolishing-all-township-assessor-offices
Does anybody show up at these townships?
Where is Jim Condon at McHenry Road Dist?
A no show…… well, maybe not on payday.
Try speaking to him at his office!
King Condon: tel:1-815-385-3076
Koziol
The Illinois Constitution of 1818 did not provide for township organization as a unit of local government — that is, townships as recognized quasi-municipal political subdivisions of the State and county. (See Ill.Const. of 1818, Schedule § 4).
The 1848 Constitution permitted (but did not mandate) counties to adopt township organization, pursuant to enabling legislation to be enacted by the General Assembly. (Ill. Const. of 1848, art. VII, § 6).
The first act of the General Assembly permitting township organization was passed on February 12, 1849. (1849 Ill.Laws 190 (“An Act to provide for township and county organization, under which any county may organize whenever a majority of voters of such county, at any general election, shall so determine”, approved February 12, 1849)).
At the November 6, 1849, general election township organization was on the ballot in fifty-nine (59) and adopted in twenty-four (24) counties (I believe at the time there were approximately 99 counties in Illinois), with annual town meetings commencing township governmental operations in those twenty-four (24) counties in April, 1850. (See Michael D. Sublett, Township: Diffusion and Persistence of Grassroots Government in Illinois, 1850-2000, 11, 17, 24, 26 (Peter Lang 2004)).
Hence, initially some counties opted for township organization, some did not, and some didn’t even have the proposition on the ballot.
I’d be interested in any historical authority you rely upon for what you are saying, particularly the assertion that all 17 of the commission counties had previously had and jettisoned township organization in the 1930s.
https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2021-02-23/these-states-have-the-highest-property-taxes
Effective tax rates, #1 New Jersey @ 2.49%, #2 Illinois @ 2.27%
https://www.governing.com/archive/number-of-governments-by-state.html
Units of government, New Jersey 1338, Illinois 6918
The following states have fewer total units of government, but have higher number of units of gov per 100k population than Illinois.
Co, Ia, Ka, Me, Mn, Mo, Mt, Ne, Nd, Sd, Vt, Wy.
There is no direct correlation between the number of units of government to the actual costs of delivering those same services.
Before we make bigger units of gov like McHenry county and especially McDOT, we need a PLAN that actually saves on taxation.
It’s been proven many times over bigger units of gov are more inefficient than smaller units of gov.
The Township’s should go, easily absorbed by county government, with a lot less money necessary to deliver same service.
Consider the many different police agencies in McHenry County. Local, Sheriff, & Park Police.
Really we only require a larger Sheriff’s department to effectively enforce the laws.
This works in Florida with a lot less duplication.
Elected County Treasurers used to assess property.
After I was elected County Treasurer at age 24 I attended county official conventions at which Treasurers met in breakout sessions.
At one point I asked why Treasurers (and Sheriffs) were not allowed to succeed themselves under the 1870 State Constitution.
One of the older guys said it was because the 1870 Constitutional Fathers thought any Treasurer of Sheriff who could not get rich in one term did not deserve another.
With slot machines operating illegally in McHenry County, I could understand the sheriff part of the term limitation.
But Treasurers?
It was not until I figured out that appointed Suervisors of Assessment were authorized in thw 1950’s to take over the assessment part of the Treasurer’s duties that I understood how a County Treasurer could get rich.
So, to suggest that counties have elected County Assessors (which at least one does) does not sound like a good government solution to me.
Townships are just another layer of government that Iowa doesn’t have.
My new home in retirement: IOWA
They realized townships were a big waste and abolished them all right after WWII.
Thanks Nob for pointing out the facts.
Teachers and their pensions and government employees and their pensions are the reason our property taxes are so ridiculously high.
Getting rid of townships is a nice distraction from those facts.
Or maybe those bigger towns with pensioned employees need a bigger pot to feed off of and that’s the reason to eliminate townships and annex some more taxpayers
Congratulations on your retirement Bob.
the nob
I agree with you. I’m not persuaded that simply reducing the number of governmental units or the number of elected officials will necessarily result in a tax savings.
I suggest it may depend upon the circumstances and that in-depth studies are needed to forecast the results of any proposed reduction or consolidation.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m still waiting for those tax savings resulting from the reduction in the size of the General Assembly.
McSweeney may have started the bs about reducing the volume of gov agencies, he still uses that talking point on Facebook.
In-depth studies of the numbers and related issues like buildings, equipment, personnel, travel increases that reduce work preformed.
Most of the info just needs to be collected, analyzed then a plan made that saves taxation.
Anything short of that is more BS.
Preston Rea, give back some of the money you chiseled!