Assessment Protest in Burton Township

Burton Township’s Candice Marquette and Paul Kaup offer the following for your consideration:

McHenry County Homeowners,

2015 is a quadrennial home assessment year in Illinois but many of us who reside in the Burton Township weren’t prepared for knockout upset when we opened our current property tax assessments.

Many homeowners faced double digit surges with one being as high as 120%.

Home values have continually decreased and home sales are slow yet the tax bill keeps mounting with no end in sight.

Now many tax bills rival the monthly mortgage payments.

Burton Township Assessor Jessica Huber testified before the McHenry County Board's Township Consolidation Task Force. She opposed holding a vote on consolidation.

Burton Township Assessor Jessica Huber testified before the McHenry County Board’s Township Consolidation Task Force. She opposed holding a vote on consolidation.

A grassroots conversation began within the town and several residents reached out to the township tax assessor Jessica Huber (who actually lives in Wisconsin to avoid the high property tax bills) for an explanation.

She provided many reasons for the dramatic assessment increases.

  1. She was directed to revise our areas assessments “up”, she said she was told that her predecessor made many mistakes and had miss assessed our area.
  2. It’s a quadrennial tax year and she will not be doing any revisions so take it up with the review board.
  3. She claims our houses have more value now than what they have been assessed in the past.

The outrage has spawned three public meetings with local political representatives, township assessors and supervisors for explanation and recourse but the overall feeling is hopelessness for the residence that now must scramble to prepare for the inevitable tax bill.

Selling and leaving the state is not a quick solution because the high property taxes are a deterrent to potential buyers and the burden is passed to the new owner instead of being resolved.

The enormous property tax burden is unsustainable and results in many questioning if it’s time to pull up stakes and abandon Illinois.

How does the county reasonably expect homeowners to pay up an additional $1000, $2000, $3000, for TY 2015?

This is an unreasonable demand by the county.

After digging into this problem it becomes evident that the system is broken along with the State of Illinois being broke.

There seems to be very little political will to solve this problem, and make it a much simpler, transparent process.

We all need to join this fight together in a grass roots effort.

It has become evident to me that is the only way these problems are going to get attention.

We are all fighting this battle as small groups in individual townships throughout the county and the state.

We need to stage a protest at the County Administrative Building in Woodstock.

Please use the link below to join our group…lets come together to fight this issue….

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1MNaxuQbjrjnlqDj9LKRijpZ8Rm9DPBcy8WNwU6hvk24/viewform

Please visit our web-site at…..

https://sites.google.com/site/rftstars7/property-tax-assessments


Comments

Assessment Protest in Burton Township — 13 Comments

  1. The rooster has come home to roost!

    The voters in the State of Illinois voted to GUARANTEE PUBLIC PENSIONS and AN ANNUAL INCREASE OF AT LEAST THREE PERCENT PER YEAR.

    The voters elected people who have continually increased the size of social welfare programs and the government needed to administer them!

    The voters approved each and every levy made by the Schools by electing members of the School Board.

    Have you ever voted for any school bond referendum?

    If so, you are part of the problem.

    This past election, less than 11 % of the registered voters in the County went to the polls.

    You almost had a chance to screw things up even more when Bob Anderson was almost successful in putting Township consolidations on the ballot!

    You, the voter, would likely have approved it, even though imo, you were lied to when the support group stated it would save taxpayer dollars!

    Thank God the County Board voted it down!

    Some Townships west of Hwy 47 and the County Board have set the bar for reducing property taxes.

    Most levies will be set before the end of the year. Go to those meetings and demand lower levies!!!!

    This state will continue its decline if you do not vote and if you do vote you vote for anyone who promotes growth!

    Growth is a Ponzi scheme and unfortunately current taxpayers are paying the price for the excessive salaries / pensions now being paid to public sector employees!

    If you are not willing to continue to support our decline, vote.

    AND when you vote, get to know the candidates you support.

  2. I wish more township residents from the collar counties were just as engaged. Township Assessor’s hold no special power not already granted to the State or local Chief County Assessment Officer. And wait, doesn’t the 60 ILCS “Township Code” require elected officials to live in the township they serve?

    Lake County did a study and reported nearly $4M saving in property taxes per year if the Township Assessor responsibility were given to the County. That doesn’t mean the County Assessor’s Office would take on the entire load. Through the savings, they could pick the cream of the crop former elected Assessors and their deputy staff and open satellite offices throughout the county to still provide more personal service.
    Of course with the NIMBY attitude so many have, the Assessors were outraged and put political pressure on the County Chairman who punted the findings to the State.

    A neighboring Township Assessor through errors in assessments and lost appeals cost his taxing bodies over $600K in lost “extended” revenues last year. That loss of revenue will surely be passed on to the property tax payers in the out years.

    If I were a betting man, given the Property Tax Freeze not going anywhere in Springfield this year, the quadrennial assessments, tax bills will sky-rocket next year before leveling off for a few years.

  3. Due to the unfunded police and fire pension and retiree healthcare liabilities property taxpayers are undertaxed.

    Many IMRF plans are also underfunded, although not nearly to the extent (percentage wise) of police and fire.

    The legislative benefit hikes after the pension sentence was added to the Illinois State Constitution on December 15, 1970 have taken their toll.

    The major problem with the hikes is the pensions were already underfunded.

    Benefit hikes to underfunded pensions is irresponsible yet was done repeatedly over the last 45 years to all the pensions in the Illinois Pension Code.

    This has been known for 45 years by many including all past Governors, Senate Presidents, and House Speakers over that period.

    Michael Madigan has served the longest amongst those positions.

    Has Michael Madigan explained any of this to the public.

  4. The best way to fight it…

    FOI the data. For all neighborhoods. Examine for yourself. Learn how the assessor calculated. She should be upfront with it (unless your assessor is in Grafton township.) Compare to other townships too. Then come prepared for the Board of Review.

    And don’t freak out too much, because everyone’s assessment seems to be going up. The tax rate will not stay the same. The tax rate is based on the amount levied and the total assessed value in that tax levy district. And so far, tax levies seem to be flat, as a lot of the politicos know their citizens are getting angry. So that means the rate SHOULD go down. Dont’ get me wrong though, they’re still too high…

  5. If you had real legislators instead of retired schoolteachers and other assorted gadfly’s. You’d have had an opportunity as I did on Nov.3rd, to vote on a tax reducing amendment to the current State Constitution. Yes Illinois, you can change your Constitution. That is, if you didn’t have representation more interested in hanging honorariums on their office walls, paid for with your tax dollars.

    Prop 1 in Texas, was overwhelmingly approved by voters. Cuts the amount I pay to school districts, in my case, by a little over $350.

    Great living in a State, with Legislators that have a pulse.

  6. Come Spring, expect to see a wave of “for sale” signs popping up
    as homeowners flee Illinois.

    Don’t wait till it’s too late.
    Abandon Illinois, if at all possible for you to do so.

  7. What I’d like to know (among other things) is why we don’t require those collecting these IL pensions to live in IL as long as they’re collecting. They move to other states and don’t support the state that’s paying them! Take, Take, Take!

    So even they know that their demands and outrageous raises throughout their govt careers have caused taxpayer hardship yet have no empathy for the very state that has supported them (and their families) sometimes their whole life.

    Why don’t we change THAT in the IL Constitution!

  8. Running away from Illinois isn’t the answer.

    You have the power to make the change, but you have to engage.

    Every taxing body in Illinois will be passing levies before 12/27/15.

    These levies will determine the tax rate on next years property tax bill.

    ENGAGE ENGAGE ENGAGE because really we only HAVE US to blame for our outlandish property taxes. Property taxes are a result of who WE elect in the Consolidated elections (odd) years (Spring).

    In the collar counties, 85% of US sit home.

    Yet we scream bloody murder when the tax bills come out.

  9. DMAC57 – either you miss my point or you incapable of understanding basic economics.

    People CANNOT afford to live in this state any more, it’s as simple as that.

    People can live in other states and pay 1/5 the property taxes that are extorted from them here.

    This is proven out by the sheer number of former residents that have already abandoned Illinois.

    There is only so much time in one’s life, and only so much money in one’s savings.

    By all means, feel free to remain and waste both of yours.

  10. Lake County’s “study” was thin, shoddy, and consisted largely of quotes from bureaucrats in other states.

    Lake County Assessor Marty Paulsen, a NON-ELECTED political appointee, has long had a vendetta against locally elected Township Assessors, who must reside in their own communities and answer to the voters.

    His office manufactured the “study” as part of his continuing effort to take the voters out of the property tax process as much as possible…

  11. As Cal knows who every person is, Truckin561 must have him really shaking his body in laughter!

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