McHenry County Blog

A press release from State Rep. David McSweeney:

McSweeney Calls on Speaker Madigan to Release Property Tax Relief Bill

Springfield –On the same day a special House committee heard testimony on a pension cost shift proposal to local school districts, state Rep. David McSweeney (R-Barrington Hills) had his property tax relief bill blocked by the House Rules Committee. McSweeney’s amended bill, Senate Bill 1937, is a proposal for Illinois residents living within township governments to get a 2-year property tax levy freeze and it also provides tax relief for seniors living with people with disabilities.

“We are here discussing a pension cost shift today, which will result in yet another property tax increase,” said McSweeney.

“Residents have had enough.

“Property taxes are through the roof at a time when home values and the market haven’t recovered.

“My bill would provide tax relief now and the bill deserves a fair shake.”

Earlier this week, McSweeney filed the amendment to Senate Bill 1937 which specifically calls for enacting the 2-year property tax freeze.

The House Rules Committee has not released the amended bill to the House Revenue Committee.

The Rules Committee is the place in which legislation can be killed or advanced by the Democratic House leaders.

“If my bill is released from Rules and doesn’t pass the House, so be it. That’s the democratic process,” added McSweeney.

“But, I have garnered significant support from both sides of the aisle on this bill and I respectfully ask the Speaker to reconsider this bill.

“I’m confident that I have the necessary votes to pass the bill in Revenue Committee and on the floor”

If released from Rules and then ultimately enacted, Senate Bill 1937 would take effect immediately and would impose a 2-year Township property tax levy freeze, covering tax billing years 2014-2015 for township governments only.

This is not McSweeney’s first attempt at property tax relief this session.

As one of his first actions in office, McSweeney proposed House Bill 95 which would freeze all property tax levies for three years. He was also lead co-sponsor and supported Representative Jack Franks’ House Bill 89, which would freeze all property tax levies when home values fall.

[Franks' bill tanked.]

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For more information about township taxes in McHenry County, click here.

State Rep. David McSweeney is proposing at amendment to Senate Bill 1937 that would prohibit township governments throughout Illinois from increasing the amount of money they extract from taxpayers’ pockets for the next two years.

Unlike some legislators and local officials who try to tinker with property taxes, McSweeney knows the key word is “extension.”

The “extension” is the amount of money that a tax district is allowed to collect in a given year. It is usually well below the levy, which can be seen as a “wish-fulfillment.”

For example, McHenry County College increased its levy by nine percent, giving it bad publicity in the Northwest Herald, but having no impact on the Property Tax Cap-imposed limit of three percent (plus new growth).

Just as an aside, any tax district official that wants to cut taxes should vote to make his or her tax levy the same as the extension for the year before.

In any event, McSweeney is probably on a mission impossible, because there are thousands of townships in Illinois.

Plus, the record of what is happening to the bill show that his amendment has been assigned to the House Rules Committee, the place legislation where House Speaker Mike Madigan kills amendments he doesn’t like.

David From, State Director of the Illinois chapter of Americans for Prosperity, informed me of this amendment via the following email:

“I’m writing to ask you to take just a moment of your time to support legislation to place a two-year moratorium on the property taxes levied by townships. The legislation sponsored by State Representative David McSweeney (R-Cary) will be the subject of a committee hearing tomorrow morning in House Revenue Committee. We need to let committee members know that we support this common-sense moratorium on higher local taxes.

“Please take a moment to submit an electronic witness slip in favor of SB 1937 today!

“Illinois faces a dual problem when it comes to property taxes; they’re rising fast while Illinois’ median household income is dropping. In the four most recent years for which census data is available, Illinois median household income dropped by more than $3,000. At the same time, the suburban Daily Herald reported in November that “property tax levies were up nearly $4.8 billion” between 2005 – 2010.

“Click here to file an electric witness slip with the committee on behalf of Rep. McSweeney’s efforts to curb the increase of property taxes! Be sure to check “Proponent” in Section III (Position) & “Record of Appearance Only” in Section IV (Testimony).”

McHenry County has seventeen townships. Each township has two separate governments.  One is run by the Supervisor; the other by the Highway Commissioner.

The following made a good faith effort not to take every dime that they could. I put them on my “Honor Roll.”

ALDEN TOWNSHIP
2011 – $138,551.71
2012 – $125,589.92 (-9.4%)

ALGONQUIN TOWNSHIP
2011 – $1,812,281.41
2012 – $1,818,540.52 (+0.3%)

ALGONQUIN TOWNSHIP ROAD & BRIDGE DISTRICT
2011 – $3,989,082.24
2012 – $3,989,081.94

HARTLAND TOWNSHIP
2011 – $177,096.32
2012 – $168,120.44 (-5.1%)

HARTLAND TOWWSHIP ROAD & BRIDGE DISTRICT
2011 – $257,147.74
2012 – $249,843.80 (-2.8%)

HEBRON TOWNSHIP ROAD & BRIDGE DISTRICT
2011 – $223,260.02
2012 – $218,264.61 (-2.2%)

MARENGO TOWNSHIP
2011 – $303,002.43
2012 – $299,000.30 (-1.3%)

MARENGO TONSHIWP ROAD & BRIDGE DISTRICT
2011 – $496,211.57
2012 – $496,964.36 (-0.2%)

McHENRY TOWNSHIP
2011 – $1,876,425.79
2012 – $1,876,437.35

McHENRY TOWNSHIP ROAD & BRIDGE DISTRICT
2011 – $3,406,895.19
2012 – $3,406,912.40

NUNDA TOWNSHIP
2011 – $1,125,172.20
2012 – $1,125,172.20 (+0.3%)

NUNDA TOWNSHIP ROAD & BRIDGE DISTRICT
2011 – $3,332,592.47
2012 – $3,332,591.92

RICHMOND TOWNSHIP
2011 – $258,886.96
2012 – $262,771.67 (+1.2%)

SENECA TOWNSHIP
2011 – $172,300.92
2012 – $168,000.60 (-2.5%)

SENECA TOWNSHIP ROAD & BRIDGE DISTRICT
2011 – $266,055.92
2012 – $266,053.68

But let’s put the role of township government in perspective.  Below is what each type of government has billed (extended) this year:

• Schools – $499 million (Only four districts are taking less money this year than they did last year.)

All the rest take $93 million will be funneled to special districts, as follows:

• 

  Huntley Village Hall

  Municipalities – Almost $67 million (municipal Tax Increment Financing Districts will receive $2.3 million more)

• Fire Protection Districts – $41.1 million
• Community Colleges – $32 million
• Townships – $26 million
• Conservation District – $19.6 million
• Library Districts – $16.1 million
• Park Districts – $15.6 million
• Miscellaneous Districts – $698,000
• Sanitary Districts – $672.000
• Cemetery Districts – $44,000

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Other articles about the real estate tax bills that will be paid in 2013:

• Most Tax Rates for McHenry County’s Upcoming Tax Bills – Up 15% in Algonquin Township Part of Lakewood
• McHenry County Multiplier Increases Assessments 1.0243 for This Year’s Tax Bills, $1 Billion Assessment Loss Sends Tax Rates Soaring
• Property Tax Rates – Comparing This Coming Year’s to Last Year’s
• McHenry County Tax District Honor Role
• The McHenry County Taxman Cometh – Tax Bills on the Internet

The Daily Herald’s Jim Davis wrote an opinion piece criticizing the cost of holding township primary elections.

It’s an easy hit on politicians.

Hey. Nobody voted.

So, divide the number of people voting into the cost of the election and the result is a high price per vote.

That, of course, is the fault of the politicians.

After reading his article, I sent Davis this email:

“As the House sponsor of the twp primary bill, I really wonder at your line of logic about abolishing that option in the name of saving money.

“Why not just let the party leaders select who will be on the ballot in November general elections, too?

“Where do you draw the line on encouraging democracy?

At 22, Melissa Sanchez will be the youngest township official in McHenry County.

“Do you really think a 22-year old, just-graduated-from-college Melissa Sanchez would have been selected by party leaders to be the Republican candidate in McHenry County’s largest township, Algonquin?”I don’t.

“Why should every place but Cook County elect individual precinct committeemen, rather than have precinct captains appointed by the local party boss?

“Waste of space on the ballot, wouldn’t you say?

“Maybe you would say it’s too much democracy.

“I would argue the lack of such local precinct level elections in Chicago has thwarted the chance of minorities to take power in an incremental process, delaying the taking of power from white politicians until the voter majority was overwhelming.

“Dictatorships often save money by never having an election.

“But that’s a cheap shot.

“The real question is where you would draw the line?”

Now, if Davis had suggested cutting down the number of judges from two in the majority party and one in the minority party, I would have supported such an idea.

Maybe next time he will.

And it’s not that I haven’t bemoaned the low voter turnout. Consider what happened in Algonquin Township.

4.6% voter turnout.

I only managed to interest 7.8% of the voters in Algonquin’s 7th precinct to vote in the Republican primary election.

Quite disappointing but not a reason to abolish elections in favor of party caucuses that would have even fewer participants.

This is the last installment about McHenry County Board member-elect’s thoughts on township government.

CAN YOU JUST REFORM THE TOWNSHIPS?

There are some things that could be potentially done to improve the efficiency of township government.

I actually ran for Supervisor in 2000 on a reform platform.

I had a number of proposals to consolidate and trim various aspects of the Supervisor’s office, and work with other townships to merge some functions.

For instance, you could merge the interim assistance function with neighboring townships so that only one township would have to incur the overhead to keep an office and staff for when someone wandered in off the street looking for assistance.

Smaller townships which have part time assessors could merge the assessment function.

Road districts in the more populated townships could develop agreements with municipalities and the county to take over the road repairs and snow plowing in the less accessible locations.

It turns out, however, that townships are not going to pursue those types of reforms unless their very existence is meaningfully threatened.

They will also not try to work out any of the transition issues for how services could be provided by other units of government until a township is actually dissolved and they are forced into it.

As a case in point, the [Ann] Hughes Committee, which was formed in the General Assembly immediately after Bob Anderson succeeded in getting the abolition question on the ballot, was advertised to have been formed to explore the various transition issues of how services would be picked up by other governmental units.

Instead of doing that, when the referendum failed, they just passed a bill to make it more difficult to abolish townships county wide and adjourned.

Most of the Republicans running for office this year have made smaller government the foundation of their platforms.

Yet, when it comes to actually doing something about an area of government that could easily be reformed or eliminated, they are strangely silent.

I have gone into this issue now because this is the time for people to be circulating petitions to run for township offices.

[Filing is from November 19th through November 26th.  Make sure you file a statement of economic interest with the County Clerk's Office and attach a receipt to the petition, whose pages must be numbered and stapled together.  Otherwise an opponent like Marc Munaretto might challenge your petition, the way he did Nancy Scalero's when she filed to run against him in his first election.  Because the pages were not numbered, Nancy was kicked off the ballot.]

There look to be several hotly contested races in at least three of the most populous townships in our county.

What better time to have a discussion of how necessary the townships really are?

If you comment in the comments section, I will attempt to respond. Please keep your comments factual, do not try to engage in personal attacks on anyone else, and don’t post false posts in someone else’s name.

This installment of McHenry County Board member-elect Mike Walkup’s thoughts on township government concerns the political aspect.

THE POLITICS OF TOWNSHIPS

One of the main arguments for the continuation of townships is that the offices of Assessor and Road Commissioner are elected and that township government, being physically smaller than the county, is therefore more accountable to the people via the electoral process.

There is some surface appeal to this argument.

However, it is belied once you look at how the elections for township offices are actually held.

Elections for township office are held every four years in odd numbered years in the Spring.

The next one will be in April of 2013.

The general election portion of the township election coincides with elections for municipal offices and school boards, which are known as the Consolidate Elections.

Voter turnout at Consolidated Elections is invariably low, unless there is some type of taxing referendum on the ballot at the same time.

Typically, turnout in years with no taxing referenda is around 15% to 20%.

If more people are coming in to vote for a taxing referendum, they usually only know about that referendum and are not familiar with the candidates for township offices which they are surprised to see also on the ballot.

They will either not vote for those offices or will guess their way through that portion.

In the more populous townships which have adopted partisan elections, the situation is much worse.

No Democrat has ever been elected to township office in McHenry County so far as I am aware.  [Not on the Demcoratic Party label, as far as I know.]

Therefore, the Republican primary become tantamount to the entire election.

People who show up for the general election are usually even more Republican oriented than the population of voters who vote in general elections like the one we just had.

When, then, IS the Republican primary for township offices?

You may be surprised to learn that it is in February, 2013.

[Filing for GOP primaries in Algonquin, Dorr, Grafton, McHenry and Nunda Townships is from November 19th through 26th.  Petitions must be filed with the township clerk, along with a statement of candidacy and receipt from the filing of a Statement of Economic Interest with the County Clerk's Office.  These must be stapled together.  Pages must be numbered.]

Very, very, very few people show up for this election, making it easier for townships to overwhelm the vote with their supporters.

Typically the turnouts for the primary are in the single digits percentage wise.

This assumes that there even IS a Republican primary.

There does not necessarily have to be one.

If they want, the precinct committeemen of the township Republican Party can vote at one of their meetings (which the public does not attend) to select all of the township candidates by caucus.

Then there is no primary and the general election is a foregone conclusion.

Oftentimes, various township officials or their spouses are also Republican precinct committeemen .

When do you vote for your Republican Party precinct committeemen?

You do that in the primary election in even numbered years, but only if you vote in the Republican primary.

Only about a third of the registered voters vote in either primary.

The precinct committeeman position is at the very end of the ballot, and is usually uncontested.

Virtually no one knows that this vote can, in effect, determine who the township officials will be the following year.

ARE ARGUMENTS TO ABOLISH TOWNSHIPS PARTISAN?

It has been commented on this blog that it is the Democrats who are interested in abolishing townships because most townships are in Republican areas and this would get rid of some Republican office holders and patronage jobs.

Actually, the movement to abolish townships in Illinois was started by a paralegal named Mike Richardson, who is a Republican and who lives in an area where the Democrats control the townships.

Bob Anderson, who spearheaded the effort in McHenry County, is very much a Republican.

The City of Evanston has placed an advisory referendum on the ballot to abolish Evanston Township, both of those bodies being Democratic.  [It should be noted that Evanston Township has the same bounaries

Final installment: Are Townships Ready for Reform?

This is the third installment about township government that was written by McHenry County Board member-elect Mike Walkup:

SHOULD WE GET RID OF TOWNSHIPS AND HOW?

What then is the actual cost of having townships versus not having them?

We couldn’t say back when Bob Anderson was making his pitches to abolish townships but there has since been a study.

In 2004, Cook County townships were studied in terms of efficiency and cost and it was concluded that if those townships were abolished and their essential functions were taken over by other units of local government, the net savings would be FIFTY PER CENT.

Granted these were more urbanized townships than most of those in McHenry County, but Algonquin Township is almost identical to those Cook County suburban townships.

Why then do we still have townships?

We have townships because they are there.

Once something is there, people are there who have a vested interest in staying there.

If we were to turn local government over to Bain Capital, the first thing they would do is dissolve township government.

Ironically, it is the Republican Party which is most invested in the continuation of township government, as more counties, and hence more townships, throughout the state are in Republican areas.

Townships are a good place for local politicians to get their start.

We have several current and former County Board members who started out on township boards.

Dick Klemm, who eventually became State Senator, started at the township.

His ex wife, who shares his surname, was previously County Board Chair and is now a township Supervisor.

They are also a great place to retire.

he way the government retirement system works is you multiply the total number of years you were in government employment times the salary you received during your last years to come up with your pension amount.

The fact that you didn’t make much during most of those earlier years does not reduce your pension.

It is not based on what you paid in, in contrast to most private pension plans.

For example, we currently have three township Supervisors in McHenry County who served for many years on the County Board, and another who is expected to be running for Supervisor.

While on the Board, they didn’t earn much as some of them worked on a per diem basis in past years.

When they retire today, however, they will become entitled to generous pensions based on their Supervisor salaries.

It is a great way to boost your pension.

What has been the track record of attempts to abolish township government?

Bob Anderson was the only one in the state as far as I know to be able to surmount the legal hurdles to even get the question on the ballot.

When he did so, the county was swarmed by township people from all over the state and money poured in from the state township lobbying organization.

Literally thousands of signs appeared saying: “Township Government/The Government Closest To The People.”

That will happen again if anyone is so bold as to try to abolish an individual township anywhere in the state. If one township falls, the county will have to scramble to figure out how to replace its functions, which will show that it can be done without the world ending. This will be the death knell of townships everywhere.

There will likely only be one of these contests going on at any one time so the entire weight of the extremely powerful Township Officials of Illinois (TOI) will be able to descend on the plucky locals.

Whoever wants to do this will need a lot of money and a lot of volunteers.

They are also going to need a good slogan that can fit on a sign or bumper sticker.

Jack Franks may have given it to them in his recent attempt to create a County Executive.

How about

“NO TOWNSHIPS=LESS TAXES”

It could be a winner.

Next installment, Politics

Before I post the next installment of McHenry County Board-elect Mike Walkup’s thoughts on township government in Illinois, let me point out that someone forged his name on a comment under the first article.

The poster used the email address mikewalkup@gmail.com.  If another email from that address comes, it will be marked as “spam.”

The person posted that Walkup wanted to be County Board Chairman.  Here is Walkup’s reply:

Mike Walkup

“I did NOT send the blog entry on the County Chair position.”I DO NOT want to be the Chair and would refuse to serve if somehow I was magically elected.

“This post should be removed immediately!

“Someone is playing dirty tricks here.”

I have chosen to leave the fraudulent comment up, so you can see the dishonesty of the poster.

It is obvious that there are heated opinions on township government.  Lots of people have no idea what it does–including a neighbor who brought up the subject while I was passing out my precinct letter.

Those who want to run for township office have to file petitions from November 19th through November 26th with the township clerk.  Prior to filing petitions, an economic disclosure statement must be filed with the County Clerk.

The number of signatures is minimal and the pay for some of the offices is quite good.  With unemployment what it is, people with lots of time to knock on doors might snag some really decent paying jobs for a minimal printing expense. For instance the Algonquin Township Supervisor pays $66,655.40 for the first two years and will rise to $69,348.28 in the final year, plus $1,000 for being the Road District Treasurer. (See other Algonquin Township salaries here.

Continuing the Township Government Series – Part 2

ASSESSOR

When I was campaigning for County Board, the most common question by far was “why are my taxes not going down if my property is worth less?”

It is natural to assume that if your tax bill comes from the county and you write your check to the county, that it is the county that is responsible for your assessments.

This is not the case. Assessments are done by local township assessors, of which there are 17 in McHenry County. The county has nothing to say about assessments.  [I have to take issue with this statement.  The County Supervisor of Assessments has the power to equalize assessments on a township-by-township basis and can even drill down farther in the process.  There are Supervisor of Assessments who have assumed the role of the township assessor when the assessor does not do the job.]

When townships were first formed, assessors rode around on their horse or in their buckboard essentially carrying the assessment records in their hatbands. It made sense to have the assessments done in a small area so the assessor could physically get around and develop a familiarity with the relatively small number of local properties.

Today, many townships have tens of thousands of properties and everything is done on a computer. In smaller townships, the assessor is part time and may have another job or a farm to contend with.

Assessments could very easily be handled today by the county government. Cook County has an elected County Assessor.

[I'd like to add some research data that Algonquin Township Assessor Forrest B. Hare developed in the 1970's.  He compared the size of assessing jurisdictions with their margins of error throughout Illinois.  Both townships and counties were included because there are no township assessors in Southern Illinois counties under the commission form of government.  The organization seemed to make little difference from the standpoint of the accuracy of the assessments.

[What the data showed was that jurisdictions with at least 5,000 people had more accurate real estate assessments than jurisdictions that were smaller.

[The findings spurred me to sponsor the multi-township assessor bill.  It allows smaller townships to join together for the function of assessing.]

ROADS

Townships have elected Road Commissioners.

Again, when townships were formed, road repairs consisted of hitching up a buckboard, loading a couple of guys onto it with shovels, filling it with gravel, and going out to fill the potholes.

The wagon was heavy and the horse would get tired. It couldn’t go too far.

Township road crews only maintain township roads.

They have nothing to do with county, state or federal highways.

As the township grows in population, municipalities take over what used to be township roads, causing a crazy quilt patchwork where township road crews have to travel over municipal roads to get to now disconnected pieces of township blacktop.

The only reason that overall township road mileage tends to stay the same despite growth of municipalities is because of the unincorporated subdivisions that have also been built that have added miles of twisting roads and cul de sacs which continue to be the responsibility of the township.

Today, we have trucks with GPS systems.

The road maintenance function could just as easily be done at the county level.

If we would still like the Road Commissioner to be elected, the office of County Road Commissioner could be established.

As an aside, I should mention that there are 17 counties in Illinois which never had townships.

These are located mostly in the Southern portion of the state and are predominately rural.

They still have local road districts, so that could still be possible even without township organization.

So that’s it.

That is what townships do.

They do not function as local mini-governments for unincorporated areas as is sometimes claimed by their supporters.

They have very limited and specific functions, all of which could be done at the county level or other government levels if we didn’t have the townships.

Nxxt installment: What to do about townships

McHenry County Board member-elect shares some more thoughts on township government:

WHAT TO DO TOWNSHIPS DO?

With the deadlines for filing for township offices approaching, this may be a good time to review what exactly it is that townships do and see if that can be done more efficiently in some other way.

I will break this up into installments for those who have short attention spans.

HISTORY OF TOWNSHIPS

My family came into what would become McHenry County in 1835. They traveled by wagon and horseback. For the rest of the 19th century that was pretty much the only way to travel.

Railroads came in in the 1850′s and you could go to the county seat by train, but only if you lived near a station on that line.

Otherwise it took you all day to get to the county seat and back from many parts of the county on your horse or buckboard. Farmers couldn’t afford to be away from the farm work for a full day.

You couldn’t send them an email either.

Enter township government. Townships were established shortly after the Civil War and enabled people to get to and from a seat of government in an hour or so. This was a boon to the local residents. One of my ancestors was township supervisor in the 1870′s.

PARTS OF TOWNSHIP GOVERNMENT

Township Government, like Gaul in Caesar’s day, is divided into three parts, Supervisor, Assessor and Road Commissioner. There is also a Board to oversee all of the parts. Everyone is elected, including the Board, and there is also an elected Clerk. They are all paid, along with their staffs. (Contrast this to a Park District where the Board is not paid anything).

SUPERVISOR

The Supervisor is like the CEO of the township. This was recently clarified by the litigation surrounding the attempt in Grafton Township to essentially replace the Supervisor with a Board appointed “administrator.” They weren’t allowed to do that.

The Supervisor has three main duties.

The first is to distribute what is called “interim public assistance.”

This has its origins in the days when we had no social safety net for people who had fallen on hard times. If Farmer Jones got run over by the team, Widow Jones would need help buying the seed for that year or hiring someone to help with the harvest, or she would become a drain on the local community. The Township Supervisor was therefore empowered to give her some
financial assistance out of the township coffers.

Today we have a myriad of other avenues for such assistance. To get state Public Aid, the individual has to drive to the county seat and apply in person at the state IDPA office. Numerous forms have to be filled out. Then the application is processed, but it takes about a month for the month for a check to be issued. In the meantime, the applicant is told to go to their local
township office to apply for interim assistance to tide them over.

They then drive to the township office, sit down and fill out more forms, and get a check right away. The time of an additional administrative staff person plus the Supervisor has to be expended on this process, not to mention the cost of the building they occupy. Why can’t this be done at the IDPA office while they are there using the same application forms they just completed?

Of course it could be done that way but that would eliminate the patronage jobs at the township, so the state workers are not allowed to do this.

There also aren’t a lot of these in McHenry County. Nunda Township typically processes about 2 cases per month. In Grafton it is about 18 per year.

Cemeteries

The second function of the Supervisor is to manage the township cemeteries.

Public cemeteries came into use after the Civil War so people didn’t have to keep burying their loved ones on their own properties. When I was a child playing on my grandfather’s farm, where I now live, I ran into a tombstone which said “M.J. Walkup” on it. These happened to be my initials. You can imagine how shocked I was. I later found out that this had belonged to Mary J. Walkup, who had died in the late 1800s and been buried on the farm. She had since been re-interred in the township cemetery in Ridgefield but the original tombstone stayed at the farm under a woodpile.

In the 20th century, private cemeteries began to spring up and the old township cemeteries were closed down. Today they are mainly historical relics where the occasional pauper is buried.

Check Writing

The third function of the Supervisor is to issue checks for the Road Commissioner, Assessor, their staffs, and the Supervisor’s staff, and otherwise balance the books of the township. Today this can be done by outside payroll services and accountants. This also assumes that there is a Road District and Township Assessor in the first place.

Meetings

Finally, the Supervisor prepares the agendas for the meetings of the Township Board and chairs those meetings. [However, as often seen in Grafton Township, the Board adopts its own agenda.]  Again, this assumes that there is a Township Board. If there is no township, there is no Board.

For this the Supervisor is paid a salary. The salary is usually set based on the overall population of the township. In Algonquin Township the Supervisor makes over $70,000 per year. However, the above duties do not necessarily increase along with the population. If you are in a relatively affluent area, there are not going to be that many new public assistance applications just because the population has grown. In fact, most new growth is going to be in the form of new housing whereas the poor tend to move into existing older housing.

The accounting functions do increase as the Assessor’s duties and staff will go up in direct proportion to population growth, but, again, there are outside services that can be used for this.

The ancient township cemeteries are usually landlocked and don’t grow with population increases.

Any other duties the Supervisor performs are newer functions that were made up to justify the position, and were not authorized originally by the Township Code.

The Supervisor’s job is really part time, even in a large township like Algonquin. The Algonquin Supervisor in the 80′s reportedly used to live in Florida five months out of the year. In those months he would fly back to McHenry County the weekend before the monthly meeting and catch up on the work. He would return phone calls on Monday, chair the meeting on Tuesday, and go back to Florida for the rest of the month on Wednesday. The rest of the year he just worked mornings. For that he was paid $35,000, a lot of money back then. He was also able to retire on a pension based on that salary. Not bad work if you can get it.

Next installment: Other township offices

What would happen if a candidate ran for township office pledging to abolish the government for which he or she seeks office?

Attorney and future McHenry County Board member Mike Walkup considered the question and came up with the following:

Can this be done?

Many people are under the impression that townships can no longer be abolished one at a time.

This is due to legislation that was passed amending the Township Code when former McHenry County State Representative Ann Hughes chaired a special committee that had been formed following the unsuccessful attempt by Bob Anderson to abolish all of the townships in McHenry County in 1994. I will refer to this as the “Hughes Act.”

The issue at the time was that in a county like McHenry, where some townships have much larger populations than others and are also mostly incorporated into municipalities, a referendum to abolish all townships in the county could be carried by those more populous townships where the residents didn’t feel that they needed township services, notwithstanding the desires of the more rural township residents to retain that form of government.

I represented Bob Anderson at the time and helped him get the question on the ballot. It scared the heck out of the townships at the time.

The Hughes Act is as follows:

ARTICLE 25. DISCONTINUANCE OF TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATION

(60 ILCS 1/25-5)

“Sec. 25-5 Petition and referendum to discontinue township organization. Upon the petition of at least 10% of the registered voters of each township of a county, as determined by the date registration closed before the regular election next preceding the last day on which the petition may be filed, that has adopted township organization, the county board shall certify and cause to be submitted to the voters of the county, at the next general election, the question of continuance of township organization. ” {a lot of stuff next about how the signatures all have to be collected 90 days before the last day for filing the petition and how to establish that on each petition sheet}.

“Sec. 25-10. Cessation of township organization. If it appears by the returns of the election that a majority of the votes in at least three-fourths of the townships, containing at least of majority of the population in the county, cast on the question of the continuance of township organization are against the continuance of township organization, then township organization shall cease in the county as soon as a county board is elected and qualified.”

This referendum can only be presented at a general election at which members of the General Assembly are elected, so it cannot be done in connection with a Consolidated Election, which is the one next year.

The entire County Board is then replaced by 3 County Commissioners!!

Many legal experts have been advising township boards that this is now the only way to abolish townships.

This is incorrect.

The power to abolish townships by referendum created by citizen petition is derived from the 1970 Illinois Constitution. Section 5 of Article VII thereof states as follows:

” SECTION 5. TOWNSHIPS

The General Assembly shall provide by law for the formation of townships in any county when approved by county-wide referendum. Townships may be consolidated or merged, and one or more townships may be dissolved or divided, when approved by a referendum in each township affected. All townships in a county may be dissolved when approved by a referendum in the total area in which township officers are elected.” (emphasis supplied).

The State Constitution supersedes any legislative enactments which are inconsistent with it.

Bob Anderson formed a group known as “S.T.O.P.”, (Send Township Officials Packing), which I also represented, and which challenged the Hughes Act in DuPage County on the grounds that the second paragraph, which required a super majority, violated the “one person one vote” rule.

We lost at the county level and decided not to appeal.

Bob subsequently filed to abolish McHenry Township separately.

He did not have enough valid signatures and tried a second time.

This time McHenry Township Supervisor Donna Schaefer decided not to file an objection and it made it to the ballot, where it lost.

No further attempts have been made.

Therefore, I am of the opinion that you can get a binding referendum on the ballot to abolish an individual township, notwithstanding the Hughes Act provisions, which I believe apply only where someone is attempting to abolish all of the townships in a county at one time.

How many signatures would then be required and at what elections could it be presented?

The Hughes Act requires ten percent of the registered voters. However, it does not address the requirements for single township abolition.

I believe these would therefore be determined by the Election Code.

This would fall under Section 28, Submitting Public Questions.

It provides as follows:

“The method of initiating the submission of a public question shall be as provided by the statute authorizing such public question, or as provided by the Constitution. …..

If such statute does not specify any of the foregoing petition requirements, the corresponding petition requirements of Section 28-6 shall govern such petition.

“Sec. 28-6. Petitions; filing.

“(a) On a written petition signed by a number of voters equal to at least 8% of the total votes cast for candidates for Governor in the preceding gubernatorial election by the registered voters of the municipality, township, county or school district, it shall be the duty of the proper election officers to submit any question of public policy so petitioned for, to the electors of such political subdivision at any regular election named in the petition at which an election is scheduled to be held throughout such political subdivision under Article 2A.”

Therefore, I believe that only 8% of those who voted in the 2010 gubernatorial election (combining vote totals for all Governor candidates) within the township is needed and that it can be placed on the ballot at any upcoming election, including either the Consolidated Election in April or any primary election prior thereto.

There you have it.

The rest, if anything, is up to you.

The deadline for filing for the general consolidated election is December 24th. I believe for a primary there is an earlier date.

= = = = =
Those wishing to file for township office must do so from November 19-26.

Happy Thanksging.

District 6 Democratic Party McHenry Coun”ty Board candidate Scott Summers answered a recent question about consolidating local governments and shares a slightly different version of it below:

“As a Democratic Party candidate for a District 6 seat on the McHenry County Board, I now am receiving more and more questions about my public policy views.

“Recently, a township official sent me an email. In part, he asked this question: “What are your feelings on the consolidation (and/or dissolution) of certain forms of local government? Which ones would you choose to change and why?”

“Here, edited somewhat, is my response:

‘Yes, we must make changes. As you and I know, Illinois has the highest number of local governments of any state. Reducing them will of course be exceedingly difficult from a political standpoint.

‘I support the Jack Franks initiative establishing the current study commission on local government. I am very hopeful that it will lead to constructive and meaningful changes.

‘As for my personal views — I believe that “pruning” is a more appropriate concept than outright cutting. Perhaps some quick examples will suffice.

‘Oak Park and River Forest have three school districts: two elementary and one high school. One unified district might serve well.

‘I know you’re aware of the initiative in Evanston to consolidate the city and the township. I agree with this: in highly urbanized areas, municipalities and townships should be merged.

‘In rural townships, more emphasis should be placed on consolidation of services (as opposed to dissolution). Can some townships share an assessor or a highway superintendent? I think so — though that’s far easier said than done, of course.

‘But it’s not just about cutting units of government. It’s also about merging positions, and selectively closing offices. For example, DeKalb County has combined the offices of county clerk and county recorder.

‘And do we really need 102 state’s attorneys, and 102 clerks of court (one of each, in each county)? The state has 22 judicial circuits; I’d like instead to see one chief prosecutor and one court clerk in each circuit.

‘Does the Illinois Secretary of State have to have a driver facility in each county? That’s highly expedient from a political standpoint, of course.

‘But to make up an example — why not have a consolidated Winnebago-Boone facility for drivers? Or Boone-McHenry?

‘Yes, it’d be a bit more inconvenient for residents of, say, Belvidere. But can we as taxpayers continue to afford things the way they are now?

‘In short, my position is this. Rather than engaging in simplistic or across-the-board cuts, I’d like to keep the services that are cost effective, and instead consolidate and streamline the work of local government.

‘Thanks very much for taking the time to contact me.’

“Sincerely,

“Scott Summers”