McHenry County Blog

Let’s go through the townships in alphabetical order to see how the Real Estate Tax cap affects how much money they can collect.

This information, as with previous articles about the Tax Cap, comes from the McHenry County Clerk’s web site, Tax Rate page.

Alden Township

The township has a maximum tax rate of 24 cents per $100 of assessed valuation in the Town Fund.

While 3% increase is allowed in the Tax Cap allowed next year, Alden Township will only be able to get about half that amount because it is so close to the 25 cent limit right now–24.639.

In fact, when taking into account that overall assessments will be down 9%, as ordered by the Illinois Department of Revenue, Alden may be getting much less than expect.

There is no maximum limit for Public Assistance, so it remains not subject to the Tax Cap.

The Road District, which is a separate taxing entity, can get 3% more because its rates are so far under the statutory maximum.

Algonquin Township

The Town Fund is well below the maximum rate of 25 cents per hundred.

The Public Assistance Fund is not capped.

As in Alden Township, the Road District in Algonquin Township is well under its maximum tax rates on Tax Capped funds.

For a story about what happened when the levies were passed, click here.

Burton Township

McHenry County’s smallest township in area is no where near its maximum rate in the Town Fund.

The Road District is so far under the statutory limits that taxpayers cannot expect the Tax Cap to give less than a 3% increase, if it is requested by the Road Commissioner.

Chemung Township

The township that covers most of Harvard, Chemung Township, also does not have tax rates that are close to the statutory maximum.

The same goes for the Road District’s Road and Bridge Fund.

The Permanent Road Fund is different, however. It is so close to its 25 cents per hundred dollars of assessed valuation, that the Road Commissioner will be able to get less than 1.5% increase, instead of the full 3% that the Tax Cap law would allow.

Coral Township

The township which contains the Village of Union, Coral, is also well under its maximum limit for the Town Fund.

The Road Commissioner’s funds are, too.

Dorr Township

Most of Woodstock is in Dorr Township.

Dorr is well below the maximum rates in all funds under the control of both the Supervisor and the Road Commissioner.

Dunham Township

The southern part of Harvard is in Dunham Township.

The Town Fund is at 22.9 cents per hundred–close to the 25 cent maximum, but not close enough to limit a 3% increase, if requested by the Town Board.

However, once the 9% lower assessed valuation for the county as a whole works its way through the tax rate setting system, the Town Fund may well bump up against the limit set by law, resulting in next year’s tax take to being about the same as this year’s.

Of the three funds overseen by the Road Commissioner, only the 16.5 cent Road and Bridge Fund is at its maximum.  Again the “9% factor” may come into play.

The Permanent Road Fund and the Equipment & Building Fund are not.

3% Tax Cap allowed increases will be the least of the worries for Dunham Township taxpayers, however.

Last fall a bond referendum to finance road building passed 63-37, so taxes will go up.

Grafton Township

Grafton Township is also well below the maximum rates set by State Statute in the funds administered by the Supervisor.

The same is not true of the Township Road Commissioner’s Road and Bridge Fund. It cannot be increase by 3% next year.  About as much will be collected next year as was this year.

The Permanent Road Fund, on the other hand, has room for a lot of upside movement.

Greenwood Township

The township that runs from northern Woodstock on the South to Wonder Lake on the Northeast, is in no danger of reaching the 25 cent Town Fund maximum rate.

The capped funds in the Road District aren’t either.

Hartland Township

Northwest of Woodstock running up toward Harvard is Hartland Township.

The Town Fund is about 4 cents short of the maximum set by law and will be able to get an extra 3%, if the Township Board levies it, even if assessments go down 9%.

In the Road District, the Road and Bridge Fund is at its maximum, but the Permanent Road and Building & Equipments Funds are not.

Hebron Township

North of Greenwood Township is Hebron Township.

Its Town Fund is in pretty much the same shape as Hartland’s–almost four cents of growth left before State law steps in and stops it.  The year after next might be considered a problem from the Road Commissioner’s point of view.

The Road and Bridge Fund is very close to its limit, but, again, the Permanent Road and Building & Equipments Funds are not.

Marengo Township

Not even close to the maximum Town Fund tax rate is Marengo Township.

With two 3% cost-of-living increases, the Marengo Township Road and Bridge Fund will top out and taxpayers will see some relief.

The Permanent Road Fund is well under its 25 cents per $100 of AV limit

McHenry Township

The second largest township in McHenry County–McHenry Township–is at about half it maximum tax rate in the Town Fund.

The concentration of commercial and industrial assessed valuation allows the Road District funds to operate well under their maximums as well.

Nunda Township

Running from Crystal Lake Avenue north to southern McHenry, Nunda Township’s Town Fund rate is just over one-third of what it could be under State law.

The same goes for the funds under the Road Commissioner.

Richmond Township

To the west of tiny Burton Township lies Richmond Township.

The Town Fund tax rate is well under the minimum, as are the Road District rates.

Riley Township

In the southwestern corner of McHenry County is Riley Township. That part of McHenry County through which the Illinois Tollway goes is all in Riley Township.

Rural, except for the southern part of the City of Marengo, but poised for explosive growth if there is ever a Tollway interchange built at Route 23.

The Town Fund in Riley is in similar shape to those in Hartland and Hebron Townships.

The funds in the Road District are well under their maximums.

Seneca Township

The western part of Woodstock is in Seneca Township.

It’s where one of my ancestors settled in the 1830′s before deciding to more east to Ypsilanti, Michigan.

Its Town Fund is at a rate that will take a long time to reach the 25 cent maximum.

Its Road District funds are well below their maximums, too.

A couple of weeks ago news media unloaded the latest attack on township government.

They were working from a Better Government Association report.

Most of the attention was aimed at Cook County townships. That’s where most of the land is incorporated. Only about 2% of the population lives in unincorporated areas.

McHenry County was mentioned in the Chicago Sun-Times article in the last paragraph of its November 9, 2010, article.

It concentrated on the road district part of township government and based its figures on 2010 expenditures reported in an IDOT report.

It was in a cost per mile comparison for the six Chicago-area counties:

• Cook – $80,509
• Lake – $63,164
• DuPage – $42,515
• Will – 32,174
• Kane – 30,048
• McHenry – 27,399

I found the Illinois Department of Transportation 2009 study and extracted the following information about McHenry County Townships:

Doing the math yields the following cost per mile figures:

• 

  Townships in McHenry County with incorporated areas shown.

  Alden – $7,240

• Algonquin – $77,945
• Burton – $7,565
• Chemung – $13,729
• Coral – $8,163
• Dorr – $59,278
• Dunham – $7,986
• Grafton – $63,886
• Greenwood – $25,788
• Hartland – $8,726
• Hebron – $7,351
• Marengo – $15,000
• McHenry -$40,701
• Nunda – $40,719
• Richmond – $17,055
• Riley – $5,737
• Seneca – $9,794

Obviously there are great variances with more urbanized townships spending more to maintain roads than more rural townships.

Today let’s look at the cost of maintaining township roads.

As you can see, the cost varies a lot,.

So do the number of miles of roads for which the various township road commissioners are responsible for maintaining.

The townships with the most miles of streets and roads are the largest three, Nunda, McHenry and Algonquin.

The reason is the large number of unincorporated subdivisions in McHenry County.

A ranking of the road miles follows:

• Nunda – 98
• McHenry – 95
• Algonquin – 58
• Coral – 56
• Riley – 47
• Greenwood – 46
• Dunham – 43
• Hartland – 43
• Hebron – 40
• Seneca – 40
• Alden – 37
• Dorr – 38
• Marengo – 36
• Chemung – 33
• Richmond – 33
• Grafton – 27
• Burton – 13

The amount each township road commissioner spends per mile of road maintained follows:

Dorr Township Garage

• Algonquin -$67,681
• McHenry – $35,862
• Nunda – $33,413
• Dorr – $30,743
• Grafton – $27,134
• Greenwood – $21,582
• Richmond – $14,117
• Marengo – $13,569
• Chemung – $12,135
• Burton – $11,547
• Dunham – $8,745
• Seneca – $6,521
• Hartland – 5,906
• Hebron – $5,488
• Coral – $4,799
• Alden – $4,178
• Riley – $2,889

Today McHenry County Blog looks at the cost of township government in McHenry County.

The cost per person is the column that I find most interesting.  Below you will see them listed from lowest cost to highest cost for the non-road commissioner part of the bill:

The Dorr Township Hall in Woodstock.

• Chemung – $18
• Algonquin – $20
• Grafton – $20
• Burton – $24
• Greenwood – $29
• Nunda – $29
• Coral – $31
• Dorr – $31
• Richmond – $38


Grafton Township Hall

• McHenry – $39
• Marengo – $40
• Dunham – $58
• Hebron – $58
• Seneca – $58
• Riley – $67
• Hartland – $98
• Alden – $99

With the exception of Chemung, Burton and Coral Townships, the low cost townships tend to be those with the largest populations.

Conversely, those townships with the highest cost per person tend to be the smallest townships.

Townships, of course, can be minimalist in nature or take on tasks which are clearly optional.

The cost of township roads on Monday.

Yesterday we looked at Alden and Algonquin Townships. Algonquin Township has 13 precincts with no Republican Precinct Committeeman. (I’d do Democrats, too, but the McHenry County Democratic Party web site doesn’t have a handy listing.)

Today, we’ll look at the Burton Township (Spring Grove + Fox Lake), Chemung (Harvard), Coral (Union), Dorr (Bull Valley + Woodstock), Dunham (southern Harvard) and Grafton (Lakewood, Crystal Lake, Lake in the Hills + Huntley) Townships.

There are eleven empty precincts in these six townships.

Want to take over Republican politics in Spring Grove. Easy enough. Get two of your friends and ask Mike Tryon, the Chairman of the McHenry County Republican Party, to appoint you.

Right now, the GOP has no troops on the ground in that small, northeastern-most township.

Half of Chemung Township’s four precincts are vacant.  Also in the southern part of the Harvard area, Dunham Township has no precinct committeeman.

In Grafton Township, where township politics is a blood sport, six out of 31 precincts are vacant.

If you are interested in being appointed in any of these precincts, just drop me an email and I’ll be happy to forward it to Chairman Tryon. Or you can contact him directly.

Grafton Township’s precinct map is below:

The 2010 assessed valuation has been totaled for McHenry County and it’s down almost 10%.

That’s what a comparison of raw figures from the McHenry County Supervisor of Assessments Office indicate.

McHenry County real estate taxes this year will be based on assessed value of $10,132,926,407 unless the State Department of Revenue decides that figure does not reflect one-third of a three-year average  of assessed value to market value.

$10.1 billion reflects a significant drop from last year’s total of $11,210,739,442.

Grafton, Chemung (Harvard) and Marengo Townships led the devaluation race. Grafton property decreased in value over 17%, Chemung over 13% and Marengo over 3%.

Because tax districts overlap the Grafton-Algonquin Township lines, it is conceivable there ill be significant shifts of tax burden in such tax districts as Lake in the Hills, the Huntley School District and the Village of Lakewood.  Those on the Grafton Township side of the line may end up paying much less taxes to the overlapping districts than those on the Algonquin Township side of the line.
With assessed values down throughout McHenry County, one might think that tax bills will decrease.

My prediction is the same as the first year home prices started sinking.

Your tax bill will most likely increase.

That’s because virtually every tax district (include schools here) asked for the maximum amount they could get under the Tax Cap law.

That maximum is the amount the Consumer Price Index increased.  This year that means +2.7%, as I read this Illinois Revenue Department chart.

As long as assessed valuation was growing rapidly, tax district officials bragged about how their tax rates were less than the year before.

What complete dribble!

The way the Tax Cap (PRELL are the initials of the law’s title) works, if a district’s tax assessment base increases more than the increase in the cost of living, the tax rate must be cut so the district’s tax take will not exceed the increase in the cost of living.

Conversely, if last year’s tax rate multiplied times the new assessed value does not bring in last year’s property tax revenue, plus the increase in the CPI almost universally requested by tax district board members, the tax rate goes up.

That’s what happened last year.

It’s what I predicted over three years ago.

So, don’t think that a lower assessment figure will necessarily mean you will get a lower tax bill.

It could have meant that if tax district officials had not been greedy enough to request the maximum they could receive this year.

I have written about two districts where one board member tried to ratchet back the tax request for this year.

Grafton Township Supervisor Linda Moore made the suggestion, but lost the vote. A second vote was taken. This article has Rob LaPorta’s explanation. LaPorta notes that it will cost “11 cents per $100,000 home value.”

LaPorta is correct that township government takes relatively little of the total real estate taxes people pay.

But when every (or virtually every) tax district takes the 2.7% maximum amount allowed by state law, don’t be surprised if your tax bill is 2.7% higher than last year.

A similar request was made by John O’Neill at the levy meeting of the McHenry Grade School Board. I wrote about the unsuccessful effort in this article:

The Primal Urge of Government: Take As Much As It Can Get

A comment under that article leads me to believe that Aileen Seedorf made a similar unsuccessful suggestion to the Huntley School District 158 Board with similar results.

Former Democratic Party County Board candidate Jeff Thirtyacre lost his try to become Burton Township Road Commissioner yesterday.

Daniel Sutton beat him 492 to 275, taking 64% of the vote. Sutton is the current road commissioner.

Thirtyacre is an employee of the Illinois Department of Transportation.

It’s pretty interesting how the comment section below Northwest Herald stories allow other stories to be updated.

Huntley School Board member Larry Snow—still in a minority, but no longer in a 6-1 minority after April school board elections in which one candidate he supporter, Aileen Seedorf led the pack—continued to try to recoup unauthorized fringe benefits paid to school administrators in a comment on unauthorized expenditures in Burton Township yesterday.

Not many people from the Huntley and Lake in the Hills area will probably see the comment, but it is a method to exert some pressure on fellow board members to go after the $200,000 or so found paid, but not approved by the Huntley School Board.

Among other things, Snow asks,

“Do taxpayers feel different about unauthorized township expenses and unauthorized school district expenses?”

It’s pretty interesting how the comment section below Northwest Herald stories allow other stories to be updated.

Huntley School Board member Larry Snow—still in a minority, but no longer in a 6-1 minority after April school board elections in which one candidate he supporter, Aileen Seedorf led the pack—continued to try to recoup unauthorized fringe benefits paid to school administrators in a comment on unauthorized expenditures in Burton Township yesterday.

Not many people from the Huntley and Lake in the Hills area will probably see the comment, but it is a method to exert some pressure on fellow board members to go after the $200,000 or so found paid, but not approved by the Huntley School Board.

Among other things, Snow asks,

“Do taxpayers feel different about unauthorized township expenses and unauthorized school district expenses?”