McHenry County Blog

This was in the Daily Herald Tuesday:

“DuPage County homeowners can expect to pay more property taxes to school districts and other local governments, even though land values continue to plummet.

“The overall value of land in DuPage decreased last year by 8 percent, to roughly $34.6 billion. At the same time, the average tax rate for the county’s 384 taxing bodies — the other half of the tax equation — increased 11.73 percent.

“As a result, property owners countywide are going to pay an average of 3.73 percent more on their tax bills this year…”

So, why does this happen?

The reason, which I have repeated pointed out, is that during the time since the Property Tax Cap took effect in the early 1990′s, real estate inflation vastly outstripped the Consumer Price Index.

Under the Tax Cap, all tax districts but Home Rule municipalities had their tax rates forced down in order to limit their tax extraction from exceeding the increase in the CPI.

That meant their tax rates were well below the maximums set by state law.

When property values started falling, the tax districts kept asking for more money.

Because they were under their maximum rates, those rates were increased enough to give them the amount they got the year before, plus whatever the Consumer Price Index (the measure of inflation used in the law) had increased.

In DuPage County’s case this past year, tax districts did what most do every year, try to squeeze every dime they can out of property owners’ pockets.

With all the talk about how Jack Franks’ County Executive form of government would concentrate power in the hands of one person, what the DuPage County Board did might be of interest.

The Daily Herald is reporting that the DuPage County Board has voted to reverse rule changes passed about two years ago to limit the power of the Board Chairman, which in DuPage County is elected at-large.

Robert Sanchez’ article points out the new rules “restore the chairman’s ability to make committee assignments and pick committee leadership,” plus serve as an ex-officio committee member and assign staff to each committee.

Under the rules rolled back, the committees elected their own chairmen.

Actually, when I did the math from the Chicago Tribune article, DuPage County’s budget cut is 1.85%–$8 million cut from a $432 million budget.

The McHenry County Board at an August, 2012, meeting.

So, how much is the McHenry County Board cutting its budget?

DuPage County Board candidate Rafael Rivadeneira makes a pitch to cut the $50,000 a year salaries in half and eliminate health benefits and pensions for the part-time job.

In a post, the candidate reveals,

“There are now EIGHT Republican candidates in THREE separate districts throughout DuPage County that publicaly support this initiative led by Rafael Rivadeneira for DuPage County Board.

“The YouTube pitch from DuPage count Board candidate Rafael Rivadeneira came to my attention and the issues it brings up might just show up in a future McHenry County Board election.”

A press release from Chris Lauzen, Republican candidate for Kane County Board Chairman:

DuPage County Board Chairman
Dan Cronin Endorses Chris Lauzen
for Kane County Board Chairman

Aurora, IL (March 2, 2012): State Senator Chris Lauzen announced today the endorsement of DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin (R, Elmhurst) for his run for Republican nominee for Kane County Board Chairman.

Former State Senator Cronin and Chris Lauzen served together in Springfield for nearly 18 years prior to Cronin’s 2010 election to DuPage County Board Chairman.

“I worked with Senator Lauzen in Springfield and I know he is smart and tough.

State Senator Chris Lauzen announces his candidacy for Kane County Board Chairman while his family looks on.

‘He has worked tirelessly for families, small businesses and taxpayers. Please vote for Chris Lauzen in the March primary election,” said Cronin.

Lauzen cited the DuPage County Board Chairman’s similar professional and political preparation for county board chairman responsibilities.

“Dan and I literally sat next to each other in the Senate working for years on similar initiatives like tax relief, ethics reform and improvements to the employment environment . . . He has taken his substantial knowledge and political connections across the entire spectrum of local, state and national politics to benefit his constituents in his home county . . . I intend to do the same if I’m elected,” stated Lauzen.

In the Illinois General Assembly, Dan Cronin built a record as a reformer and challenged the status quo and entrenched special interests. He sponsored property tax relief and eminent domain reforms to protect taxpayers from government confiscation of private property.

“I am especially delighted to receive former Senator Dan Cronin’s support because, in just his first two years as Board Chairman of the second largest county in Illinois, he has already implemented a $10.4 M decrease in spending and strengthened the county’s ethics ordinance through votes on the county board . . . these are two of my top priorities,” said Lauzen.

Any questions, please call 630-264-2419 or email campaign@lauzen.com.

The Tax Foundation has some remarkable work comparing property tax burdens across the United States.

Want to know what part of the country to look at for retirement, if cutting your property taxes is one of your goals?

Take a look at this map:

The Tax Foundation map comparing property taxes.

I did my best to extract the information for the top Illinois counties from one of The Tax Foundation’s searchable data bases.

The information below is from here.

Click to enlarge.

= = = = =

Photoshopping by one Heck of a Guy blogster Allan Showalter.

Most of the audience at the Marengo reapportionment hearing in April.

I was looking at the transcript of the Elgin hearing conducted by Barbara Flynn Currie and her reapportionment committee.

Here’s testimony that had me laughing out loud:

MR. PEICKERT: I’m Bob Peickert, P-e-i-c-k-e-r-t.

I’m a resident of Elmhurst and the 17 chair of the demographic party of DuPage County.

As my son’s teachers have taught him, consider the context.

Later it happens again, even though in the same paragraph the word “Democrat” shows up in the transcript:

In the 2008 general election, again, for the first time ever in DuPage County, a demographic presidential candidate received more votes than the Republican candidate by a similar margin. That same election saw three democrats elected to the county board, the first time three democrats served on the county board in approximately 37 years.

Yesterday I wrote about how Winnebago County’s board had decided they, as part-time employees didn’t deserve to have pensions.

Front page of the Chicago Tribune April 10, 2010.

Today, the Sunday Chicago Tribune has a front page article by Christy Gutowski, Joe Mahr and Joseph Ryan entitled,

Quite a deal

Former DuPage County official Bill Maio was able to

secure a $100,000 a-year pension

after working mostly part-time

I wrote yesterday of how it used to be and to some extent still is the number of years one have of government pension credits, plus the final salary that counted, that a McHenry County Board member could take the credits from the relatively lowly paid County Board post, get elected to a countywide office which now, astoundingly, pay $100,000 a year and, then, retire after 40 years total annual pension participation at 75% of final pay under the well-funded Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund (IMRF).

(I also pointed out my generous legislative pension in yesterday’s article.)

The Tribune article reminds me of a gambit that elected county officials convinced legislators to pass when I was in office to turn county officials into state legislators, as far as pension benefits went.

It’s called the “Elected County Officials” option.

Notice that to be eligible one has to be a politician.

Among retired DuPage County Officials who benefited from the special pension plan was former State's Attorney Joe Birkett. After resigning his post, he was apppointed to the 2nd Appellate Court. Click to enlarge

The request of legislators was to allow elected county officials to retire after 20 years at 80% of final salary.

That’s pretty close to the benefits legislators themselves had.

But, legislators are nervous folk.

If you can keep your county officials happy, maybe they won’t run against you.

Congressmen figured this out when they allowed state legislators to keep any expense money paid for being at state capitols tax free…whether or not it was spent on room and board.

Since some lobbying group or another is holding a reception with decent food virtually every session night, it’s not hard to spend the entire per diem payment. Former State Senator Jack Schaffer used to suggest that such money should not be paid unless it was spent.

But, back to the “Elected County Officials” pension plan.

The Tribune’s research says the bill passed overwhelmingly.

The Senate voted for it 55-2 n May 16, 1997.  Senator Dick Klemm of McHenry County supported the measure.  One of two senators who did not was Chris Lauzen from just south of the McHenry County border.

The Senate's May 16, 1997, vote on the county officials pension improvement bill.

The House, 105-10. (I voted against the bill, as you can see from the roll call below.  Ann Hughes, the other representative from McHenry County favored the bill.)

The May 23, 1997, House roll call on the county officials pension sweetener bill.

Governor Jim Edgar signed the bill.

As the arrangement went down, county officials would have ther pension payment increased from 4.5% of salary to 7.5%.

Local property taxpayers would pick up the rest.

The Tribune reports that more than half of Illinois county boards signed up for the benefit.

McHenry, Kane and Lake were not among them, but DuPage and Will Counties were.

So, think back to who was serving you on the McHenry County Board in the mid-1990′s and thank them for their good judgment, even though some countywide officials wanted the board to approve the plan so their pensions would increase a lot.

Each DuPage County Board district has three members.

You’ve read about how the Democrats in Springfield are going to try to eliminate the deficit voters inflicted on their congressmen and women in the 2010 election.

Concurrently, Mike Madigan and John Cullerton will be trying to perpetuate their control of the Illinois General Assembly for another decade.

Reapportionment also occurs for county board members and the Republican DuPage County Board is reported to have taken a first step.

That board has authorized paying up to $125,000 to the law firm of Schirott, Luetkehans & Garner.

According to the Naperville Sun article, the firm has given most of its campaign contributions to Republicans.

Newly-elected DuPage County Board Chairman Dan Cronin seems to be at odds with the remap committee, seeking two-member districts, rather than the current three-member ones.

The committee is also planning to listen to an unnamed University of Illinois professor.

McHenry County popped up as number one in front page stories in the Chicago Sun-Times Sunday and the Chicago Tribune Monday.

News about food stamp use increasing was the page one story in the Sun-Times.

Foreclosures on homes was the topic of the Chicago Tribune story.

The Chicago Sun-Times shows food stamp use up30.3% in McHenry County.

McHenry County had the highest percentage increase in food stamp use from last year for Chicago metropolitan area counties–up 30.3%.

Foreclosures in McHenry County increased 29.1%.

McHenry County had the highest percentage increase in home foreclosures from last year for Chicago metropolitan counties.