Pension Funding for McHenry County Townships

Looking at the financial shape of townships in McHenry County, a Friend of McHenry County Blog found the following Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund information filed with the State Comptroller for 2017 (for Algonquin, Chemung, Dorr, Grafton, McHenry, Nunda, Riley and … Continue reading

Comparing the Number of Employees of McHenry County Townships

The Illinois State Comptroller has a data base contacting information about tax districts throughout Illinois. Looking at 2017 data from those for the seventeen townships in McHenry County, one finds the number of employees running from a low of 2 … Continue reading

Quality of Assessments in Smaller Townships

In calculating the median average assessment and margins of error, the rules say one must have at least 25 “arms length” sales. There are six townships not meeting that level of real estate sales activity. When combined, the smaller townships’ … Continue reading

LITH Man Killed in Route 23 Crash South of Harvard

A press release from the McHenry County Sheriff’s Department: Sheriff’s Office Investigates Fatal Traffic Crash A 22-year-old male was pronounced dead and a 23-year-old female was in critical condition following a traffic crash involving a pickup truck and passenger car in … Continue reading

Comparing Township Costs & Surpluses

A friend of McHenry County Blog ran these figures on McHenry County Townships: Comparison of McHenry Township Finances Township Fund Balance to Revenue Per Capita Expenditures Per Household Expenditures Alden 124.7% 266 747 Algonquin 72.8% 44 124 Burton 176.7% 59 … Continue reading

What Happened to Township Taxes?

Here is what is happening to taxpayers as a whole: Township  Inc/Decrease  2015-2014 in Total Tax Inc/Decrease 2014-2013 in Total Tax HARTLAND $95.24 ($518.43) ALDEN $1,484.21 ($2,923.60) DUNHAM $877.76 ($10,905.30) HEBRON $4,219.09 ($5,118.21) RILEY ($2,678.90) ($1,172.12) SENECA ($6,000.31) ($4,000.73) GRAFTON … Continue reading

No Cost-Benefit Analysis on Township Consolidation, Just Data Dump – Part 5

After Algonquin Township Road Commissioner finished his comments, Preston Rae, the Supervisor of the most sparsely-populated township in McHenry County spoke. “No mater who we consolidate with, we lose our representation.” The Alden Township man told of how people communicated … Continue reading

Tax Considerations on Township Consolidation

Commenter Susan has done the math on a couple of the townships which consolidation proponents suggest should be merged. Her analysis is below: Am I missing something, or is the voter’s decision made by simply looking at the comparative tax … Continue reading

Roads Cared for By Township Highway Commissioners

In an attempt to get people thinking about the proposal to combine townships, look at the number of miles of road each Township Road Commissioner maintains: In addition, Algonquin Township Road Commissioner Bob Miller writes that he offers assistance to … Continue reading

A Benefit of Consolidating Township Governments

Back in the 1970’s, Algonquin Township Assessor Forrest Hare computerized his office, probably the first to do so in the State of Illinois. He also took an interest in how assessment could be made more accurate. Hare looked at measures … Continue reading

Most Township Boards Ask for Less or Same Amount of Taxes as Last Year

Townships are a much maligned form of local government. Today we show you how much McHenry County’s seventeen townships will extract from pocketbooks this year compared to last year. Extensions are the amount of taxes which are billed.  The tax … Continue reading

Townships and Tax Caps

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 … Continue reading