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

Revised Referendum Numbers

Here are the election results for referendums throughout McHenry County’s cities, townships and park districts. The more complete results for the McHenry High School District referendum to allow the borrowing of $44 million: … Continue reading

Small Tax Hike Referendums Fail

Tax Hike referendums in Hebron Township and the Village of Greenwood were trounced. Here is the Hebron Township question: Shall the extension limitation under the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law for Hebron Township, McHenry County, Illinois, be increased from the … 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

Compensation for Hebron Township Officials

What do township officials get paid? That was the question posed in McHenry Township before its Board voted 4-1 to set the salaries of Township Trustees at zero. Today, we look at the current salaries in Hebron Township: Supervisor $9,000 … 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

Ten Townships’ Welfare Costs

Found this comparison of Township General Assistant handed out and accompanying administrative costs. You don’t have to guess that it came from Bob Anderson … 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

51% of McHenry County Precincts Have No GOP Candidates for Republican Precinct Committeeman

As I start formatting this information from the McHenry County Clerk’s Office about who filed for Republican Precinct Committeeman in what parts of the county, my first impression is that “No candidate filed” will control the GOP Central Committee after … Continue reading

BGA Goes After Township Government – Road Costs

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 … Continue reading

McHenry County’s Township Road Costs

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 … Continue reading

How Much Do McHenry County’s Township Governments Cost?

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 … Continue reading