Before the House passed the megaprojects bill last month, we were told that the drafters didn’t want to just do some symbolic or “token” property tax relief. After the chamber passed the bill, we were told the property tax component will provide meaningful statewide relief for homeowners.
Well, the governor’s office ran the numbers on the statewide tax relief aspect of the bill and shared the results with Senate Democrats, which I obtained.
It ain’t good.
The tax relief component is built into the payment in lieu of taxes, or PILOT, part of the legislation. Megaprojects developers would negotiate with local governments what “special payments” they’ll pay on top of property taxes based on frozen assessments.
The House proposal would take half that “special payment” money from local governments and divert it to property tax relief, with 60% of the annual special payments going to local residential taxpayers in the megaprojects area. The other 40% would go to statewide property tax rebates for homeowners in their primary residences.
Illinois has 3.1 million “homestead owners,” according to the governor’s office analysis. A $20 million special payment for a “Large-Sized/Industrial Development” would result in a statewide pot of $4 million (40% of $10 million, which is half of $20 million) split 3.1 million ways, for a total of about $1.29 per homeowner.
A “mid-sized” $3 million special payment would net Illinois homeowners a whopping 24 cents.
And a “small” $1 million special payment would get you… wait for it… 6 cents.
In other words, that’s not even worth the mailing costs to send the checks. And even if the program is wildly successful beyond anyone’s imagination and produces a billion dollars in special payments, that’s about 60 bucks per homestead.
According to the governor’s office analysis, “Requiring a company to negotiate and pay for property tax relief would also be an added complication to negotiating a PILOT agreement. PILOT is a tool utilized by 35 states today, so this could risk the loss of projects and the revenue they would generate.”
Again, kudos to the House for passing a Bears/megaprojects bill. It wasn’t easy by any means. As with the Senate’s mass transit bill last year, it was one of those “whatever it takes” tasks. And it was a good time for House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch to start conditioning his members to vote for some tough bills as the session progresses. On all that, Welch succeeded.
But there have been consequences. As I told you last week, Senate progressives are up in arms about how the House took the time to pass a Bears stadium bill, but didn’t pass a constitutional amendment (or anything else) to tax the wealthy.
And this property tax relief analysis from the governor’s office won’t help matters with the progressives or pretty much anyone else. Turning this ship around will not be easy without the political cover of property tax “relief.”
The House’s brief burst of frenetic activity last month has also created another rift with the Senate.
The Senate, you will recall, refused to take up the House’s proposed constitutional amendment adding to the remap requirements, “to ensure that no citizen is denied an equal opportunity to participate in the political process and to elect representatives of his or her choice on account of race,” and “to create, where practical, racial coalition or influence Districts.”
The Senate’s refusal to move the proposal has led to some new problems.
Welch’s chief of staff Clayton Harris, III, wrote on his Facebook account: “I’m proud the House stepped up to strengthen voting rights through a constitutional amendment. That mattered. It showed who we are and who we aspire to be.” And then Harris added: “But seeing that effort stall… I’m not disappointed. I’m hurt.”
Harris went on to say, “As a Howard Law grad, as someone who teaches policing and race at the University of Chicago, and as a Black man fully engaged in this state’s political landscape, voting rights aren’t abstract to me. They’re about history, access, power and who gets a voice.”
That could’ve been an allusion to Senate President Don Harmon’s statement about why his chamber decided not to proceed: “I would ask for patience and time for our state’s top legal experts to work through this. The last thing we want is to act in haste and risk unintended consequences down the road. Too much is at stake for too many.”
A spokesperson for Harmon declined comment about Harris’ statement.
- Billionaire Budster - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 9:12 am:
I have a funny feeling that Dan Harmon might face a primary challenge in the future.
- Billionaire Budster - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 9:16 am:
Don
- Michelle Flaherty - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 9:18 am:
Dan Harmon? The creator of Rick & Morty?
You might wanna have that funny feeling checked by a specialist.
- Steve - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 9:34 am:
-“to create, where practical, racial coalition or influence Districts.”-
The current U.S. Supreme Court majority has a different understanding of Section 1 of the 14th Amendment than Cook County Democrats.
- Candy Dogood - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 9:44 am:
===unintended consequences down the road===
Like what exactly?
Please do be specific. I’d like to hear from the office that bricked major legislation to protect a giant source of CO2 that has a close fiscal relationship with that office about what they think the unintended consequences her would be?
If Senate President Harmon isn’t worried about poisoning the atmosphere, I’d like to specifically hear about the “unintended consequences” of amendment.
===Turning this ship around will not be easy without the political cover of property tax “relief.”===
The problem at the core of this issue is that at the end of the day the public is still paying for the expense of building a stadium and now a whole entertainment district for a family of billionaires. There’s lots of fun ways to present that so it doesn’t sound that bad “Oh, we’re not paying for the stadium, we’re just paying for the surrounding infrastructure that the stadium requires to function” but the public, one way or another, is being asked to foot a portion of this cost whether directly or indirectly and a tax expenditure is still an expenditure.
The point of PILOT is to create sweetheart tax status for a specific interest, perhaps, a special interest. Something that is intended to keep revenue lower isn’t exactly the kind of financial mechanism one would expect to turn into “property tax relief” for millions of people.
The kind of leadership we see out of the legislature is still the kind of leadership that delivers us a 4.95% tax rate because it is lower than 5.00% and wants to pretend like that’s a significant or meaningful difference.
Lets be candid here, any legislator that thought that the ‘deal’ the Chicago Bears are demanding to prevent them from moving to Indiana was going to pay the property taxes for anyone else in the state did not spend any time thinking about this.
The point of this legislation is that they want to avoid paying what the actual tax assessment would be on their future development. They’re not showing up to pay extra. They’re not showing up to pay my property taxes. They’re not showing up to pay your property taxes. They’re trying to avoid showing up to pay their property taxes by paying a smaller amount than other people would pay if the built the same thing without the ‘deal’ they’re demanding.
If I build a hotel, I pay taxes off of a regular assessment. The Bears want to build a hotel and pay a lower tax assessment than I would, else they will move to Indiana.
Where I see the problem here is, how much was Welch or his staff relying on this promise of something that clearly wasn’t going to work to get the bill passed?
This was a dumb way to try to market and sell this bill.
“Something for everyone” turns into “here’s your six cents.”
What a joke.
I guess that’s my six cents.
- AlabamaShake - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 10:05 am:
**I have a funny feeling that Dan [sic] Harmon might face a primary challenge in the future.**
LOL - good luck.
- Annon'in - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 10:16 am:
A quick whirl thru Spi last week turned a number of House me LAST WEEK member fully expecting to be “rolled” by the Senate. Actually this might be simplest way to bring the session to an orderly conclusion. Good luck
- @misterjayem - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 10:42 am:
“Senate progressives are up in arms about how the House took the time to pass a Bears stadium bill, but didn’t pass a constitutional amendment (or anything else) to tax the wealthy.”
And Senate progressives ain’t the only ones.
– MrJM
- Casper The Ghost Bus - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 10:53 am:
I’m no lawyer, Candy, but potentially changing the Illinois Constitution to prioritize the role of race in redistricting a day or two after the US Supreme Court ruled that they won’t let race-based maps stand, is probably the kind of unintended consequence Illinois would want to avoid. I’m guessing.
- Chrissie - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 10:53 am:
Rarely if ever see that type of public interjection of personal beliefs from staff, especially at that level. Can’t be good for House-Senate relations.
- Lee Elia - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 11:02 am:
Except if you built a hotel for $500 million in Illinois you would qualify as a “megaproject” -you could take advantage of the PILOT legislation that the Illinois House passed (as well as at least 34 states) assuming it is enacted into law.
- Amalia - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 11:44 am:
Oh Clayton Harris. I remember him. Talking on the campaign trail at an in person event. His complaint about retail theft felonies included his anecdote about if someone took his phone. uh, different crime. but back to felony retail theft, he said he would, like Kim Foxx, not enforce that law. So I just don’t trust his take on laws.
- Sox Fan - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 12:27 pm:
Welch’s 60 democratic votes rule might be good for internal party organizing, but it’s starting to seem like it’s getting in the House’s way of passing good policy and leading to more and more of “fix it in the Senate.”
- Rich Miller - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 1:03 pm:
===I have a funny feeling that Dan Harmon might face a primary challenge in the future. ===
You really need more oxygen.
- charles in charge - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 2:03 pm:
==His complaint about retail theft felonies included his anecdote about if someone took his phone. uh, different crime. but back to felony retail theft, he said he would, like Kim Foxx, not enforce that law. So I just don’t trust his take on laws.==
Amalia, we can always count on you to bring any discussion back to your favorite topic of locking people up. Since you’ve taken us there, let’s talk about it and recap some recent history. First: You’re right, if someone took Clayton Harris’ phone that would be a different crime with a lower penalty than if they stole the same phone from Target, because current Illinois law nonsensically considers stealing property from a retailer to be a more serious crime requiring a more serious penalty than stealing the same item from you or me. Secondly, when Kim Foxx took office as State’s Attorney, she decided, after noticing that a huge amount of her office’s resources were being used to send people to prison for low-value shoplifting offenses instead of prosecuting violent crimes, to use the discretion of her office to prosecute low level shoplifting as a misdemeanor, at the same level it would be prosecuted in such namby-pamby soft-on-crime jurisdictions like Indiana or Texas (not “not enforcing the law” as you claim). And now here we are in 2026 having to listen to “tough on crime” types like yourself still losing your minds about it even though Kim Foxx is long gone and you’ve got your lock-em-up prosecutor now. So I guess I’m saying that I wouldn’t trust YOUR take on laws.
- 40,000 ft - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 3:09 pm:
“I’m hurt” is an emotionally manipulative strategy that has no business being used in a complicated negotiation of a huge systemic issue.
Alex, I’ll take “How to Lose An Argument for $1000″
- Amalia - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 3:46 pm:
aw how nice to have someone call following the law “lock em up.” and the current elected prosecutor created a great program for juvenile crime on the west side, you know, to help those who need to get right as well as being tougher on those who commit crime in adult court. As for her predecessor, interesting those recent depositions unveiled. Yes, I won’t take those who don’t follow the law as knowing the law.
- Demoralized - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 4:19 pm:
==who don’t follow the law ==
Prosecutors decide IF and HOW to enforce the law ALL THE TIME. Your comments seem to not have the slightest clue about that fact.
- Amalia - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 8:31 pm:
there’s a world of difference between making prosecutorial decisions and a blanket decision not to follow the law.
- Frida's Boss - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 11:12 pm:
It will be packaged as “millions in property tax relief” not as in you only get $1.29.
Kind of like CEJA will save the state taxpayers billions in monthly energy bills. How’s that going?
None of this is real, it’s all spin. Saving this, creating that etc etc all that’s happened is taxes have risen, costs have accelerated, new programs and NGO’s keep getting created and funded with new tax revenue. Mandates on schools, local governments, and others only add more to the bills. It’ll make your life better or safer or more productive but never more cost effective or more money in your pocketbook at the end of the month.
- Leslie K - Monday, May 11, 26 @ 11:20 pm:
==there’s a world of difference between making prosecutorial decisions and a blanket decision not to follow the law.==
Well said.
- Rich Miller - Tuesday, May 12, 26 @ 1:04 am:
===Well said===
Except the current SA has issued a blanket order to oppose pre-trial release for certain offenses, without regard to circumstances. Judges have complained about this.