McHenry County Blog

The lobbying arm of Illinois Township Officials is urging local members to call their legislators to ask them to oppose two bills.

One takes money from a state subsidy that should have been phased out decades ago. It looks like an income tax to business. Actually, it is an income tax, but it was levied when the hated Personal Property Tax was lifted from business in order to replace the lost local tax.

I wish I had been in office so I could have tried to keep the total amount replaced from increasing. It should have been a tax whose negative impact on business would have decreased over time as the rate needed to raise the lost local tax revenue would have gone down.

In any event, the Township Officials of Illinois object to diverting part of that replacement tax to pay the salaries of Regional Superintendents of Schools.

The lobbying group also opposes Jack Franks’ bill to prevent increasing local governments’ tax take when property values and, hence, real estate assessments are going down.

Here is the email of lobbyist Bryan E. Smith, Executive Director of TOI:

• House Bill 3828 was introduced and would divert money from the Corporate Personal Property Replacement Tax Fund to pay the salaries and benefits of Regional School Superintendents. TOI is OPPOSED to a diversion like this that would take money away from local governments, including townships and road districts. Late yesterday the bill was called in the House Revenue and Finance Committee and was passed out on a strictly party-line vote despite the opposition of virtually all local government groups. WE NEED YOUR HELP NOW! We need to have everyone call their State Representative(s) NOW and ask them to vote NO on House Bill 3828 when it is called for a vote in the House. It is time the State stop diverting money that is designated for local governments.
• Another bill we have been closely following is House Bill 3793. This bill amends the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law (PTELL) to prevent a taxing district (Townships and Road Districts included) from capturing the CPI increase for its extension limitation if the district’s total EAV is less than the previous levy year. TOI OPPOSES this bill because it would reduce available property tax revenues for Townships and Road Districts. PTELL (Tax Caps) already limits (in those counties that have tax caps) the ability of Townships/Road Districts to capture all available growth during good economic times. It would be very unfair to also prevent a township/road district from capturing minimal cost-of-living increases that are available.

Naturally, tax dollars finance the Township Officials of Illinois.

Don’t you wish you could get tax dollars to finance your lobbying of the state legislature?

I’d forgotten how boring budget committee mark-ups could be.

That was the first order of business at the Grafton Township meeting Monday night.

Held at the Huntley Park District headquarters (the old high school that local taxpayers have had the privilege of paying for twice because of Illinois’ multi-layered form of local government), the main order of business seemed to be to make sure there was enough money to pay newly-hired Township Administrator Pam Fender, who is also a Huntley Village Trustee.

The budget discussion went on and on.

And in the reallocating of $50,000 in contingency funds, making sure Fender would get paid was the primary objective.

Consider these three separate comments from Trustee Rob LaPorta:

“We have to keep in mind we have to add Pam’s salary in this. Plus benefits.”

“…and Pam’s has to be factored in here, too.”

“Is there going to be enough for Pam?”

Before the meeting started, Fender asked me not to take pictures from behind the row of desks where all but Trustee Gerry McMahon sat and not to sit on the counter as I had for a while during last week’s too long meeting.

I told her that there wasn’t room behind the desk and asked her why she cared whether I sat on the counter top.

She said I might fall off, get injured and sue the township, that I was “a litigious person.”

I told her I haven’t sued people, that she ought to get her facts straight before making such a charge.

Perhaps she was relying on the Northwest Herald’s account of its owner’s suit against me. If so, check out the court files. The paper sued me, not the opposite. My legal representation by Patrick Ouimet was outstanding, as was the result.

(Or maybe Fender is thinking about the days forty years ago when I sued about 2,500 people a year for non-payment of Personal Property Taxes when McHenry County Treasurer–a deliberate statewide strategy to get the General Assembly to abolish the tax that actually worked–but I doubt she’s been around long enough to remember that.)

In any event Fender was in a take charge mood, interrupting to say,

“Trustees, this isn’t going to go anywhere,”

when discussion veered to mistakes made by listening to various lawyers and bond counsel about how it was legal to borrow the $3.5 million from the Harris Bank.

That made me wonder why the board has not looked at recovering the $600,000 plus dollars that the trustee side of the table accused the taxpayer side of the table of costing township taxpayers.

Surely the attorneys who gave advice that led to actions Judge Michael Caldwell and the 2nd Appellate Court ruled improper have legal malpractice insurance.

But, there I go talking about potential lawsuits, helping make Fender’s point, I guess.

Later when the board was methodically, stripping Supervisor Linda Moore of every duty not specified by state law, the high speed copy machine, her files on other subjects, that is, leaving her with nothing to do but administer welfare relief and be treasurer of the township, Fended asked,

“Can I say something?”

Moore replied,

“The time for public comment is over.”

Fender’s comment was

“I’m an employee now.
“I’m an employee now.”

I’ve attended a good number of municipal meetings and, while city managers or village administrators sometimes interject themselves into the meeting without being asked, that is rare. Maybe Huntley’s village board meetings have a different dynamic.

Trustee McMahon was vociferous as usual.

Joining trustees, Administrator Fender attempted to calm Trustee McMahon down when he got excited.

Yesterday, McHenry County Blog suggested Governor Pat Quinn was attempting to recreate the hated personal property tax, which died an electoral death in November, 1970.

I explained how county treasurers throughout Illinois tried to put heat on legislators by enforcing this quite unfair tax.

One spring, we noticed that a state representative, George Burditt, had introduced a bill to require payment of personal property taxes before the Secretary of State would issue a car’s license plate.

En mass, a group of county treasurers arrived unannounced at the little hearing room on an upper floor behind the House chambers.

I remember sitting there while Antioch’s Bingo Bill Murphy argued against imposing (or, maybe, it was lowing) the blood alcohol limit. He said he drank more than that and he could drive just fine or something like that.

When it came to our bill, the Motor Vehicle Committee members were surprised that good government representative Burditt’s bill had so many supporters…and elected officials at that.

It passed out of committee and even passed the House before it died in the State Senate.

My state senator, Bob Coulson of Waukegan, took notice.

He introduced a constitutional amendment to exempt individuals from the personal property tax. That got the heat off the legislators and put it on the electorate.

The county treasurers were fine with that.

It passed the general election of my fourth year in office. The year was 1970.

I remember the Crystal Lake Jaycees took “Give Dirty Water the Works” campaign brochures and printing a pitch about abolishing the personal property tax on the back.

I was GOP precinct committeeman in Algonquin Township Precinct 7 at the time. Only one or two people voted against the amendment.

Naturally, it passed statewide.

When a case challenging the constitutionality of that amendment went to the Illinois Supreme Court, it was ruled unconstitutional with only one dissenting vote.

That was our Justice Charles H. Davis, the Rockford man who courted McHenry County Courthouse officials in his campaign to get the nomination. (I remember talking with him in the closest thing I had to a private office. It was a cubical we had built in the middle of the old courthouse hall. To say we were short for space was a huge understatement.

The case went to the United States Supreme Court, where it was ruled constitutional without a dissenting vote.

And, after all that work to get rid of the personal property tax, Governor Quinn is upping the ante for driving a car.

It looks a lot like a personal property tax to me…especially, as we county treasurers of the late 1960′s envisioned it under Burditt’s bill.

Don’t pay your tax and you can’t drive your car.

= = = = =
George Burditt ran for the U.S. Senate in 1974. The car top is from that campaign, which he lost to Adlai Stevenson III by 726,612. (I lost to Roland Burris for State Comptroller in 1982 by more.)

The building is the Illinois Supreme Court Building in Springfield.

First it was Republican Governor George Ryan who decided that increasing drivers license fees was the way to finance his Illinois FIRST in 1989.

I didn’t support that bill because it took about 56% of its money from the six-county Chicago metropolitan area and proposed spending only about 43% in the area on roads.

Under the 1989 gas tax hike deal that Lake County State Rep. Bob Churchill put together, the Chicago-area had been getting 45%, so Ryan’s deal was making things worse for this area, even though population and traffic had increased since 1989.

Now, Democrat Governor Pat Quinn wants to raise license plate fees $20 more.

Being a resident of Cook County, Quinn probably never paid a personal property tax bill.

Typically, getting rid of a personal property tax bill was something one asked one’s Democratic Party precinct captain to dispense with.

“Fix” for those of you who don’t need sugar coating.

Outside of Cook County, the tax was collected.

I remember that the half-life of uncollected bills was about a year. About 90% was paid and our collection efforts cut that the delinquencies in half each year.

With lots of people having moved from Cook County, lots of personal property tax bills went unpaid when I was McHenry County Treasurer from 1966-70.

The office had a whole division (well, two or three people) who filed small claims suits in my name for any bill or combination of bills that amounted to over $25. They were located down in the basement at the back of the old courthouse.

2,500 to 3,000 suits a year.

I sued fully 25% of the households in McHenry Township. It’s a wonder I ever carried the township for state representative.

If a person tried to sell a home and they had such a small claims judgment, they could not get a clear title before paying it off.

I remember one of Democratic State Rep. Tom Hanahan’s best precinct committeemen, Frank Hromac, came in really disturbed one day several years into my term.

The McHenry County Title Company had told him he couldn’t sell his home until he paid his back personal property taxes.

I explained that was the case.

He was not happy, but paid.

He was not moving out of his McHenry Lakeland Park precinct—just from one side of the subdivision to the other. He didn’t want to give up his precinct, one that he had worked so hard.

When I ran for county treasurer, opposition to the personal property tax was one of my issues.

It resonated.

The Establishment types said a county treasurer couldn’t do anything to get rid of the personal property tax.

That took a change in state law.

There were a number of county treasurers elected in 1966 with similar ideas.

We decided the way to bring pressure on the General Assembly was to enforce the law.

I remember the Peoria County Treasurer Vic Castle went so far as to physically seize cars with unpaid personal property taxes. One day I went down to watch and ended up cowering behind a snow plow blade in an East Peoria trailer park while the police tried to get an armed man to surrender.

That convinced me I didn’t want to seize cars.

In any event, enforcement was ramped up.

Part 2 tomorrow.