* Press release last week…
State Representative Dan Ugaste filed legislation today designed to help Illinois compete for transformative private investment while advancing meaningful property tax reforms that benefit homeowners and businesses across the state. The legislation has been filed as House Bill 5802 (HB 5802).
While the legislation was prompted by the ongoing discussion surrounding a new Chicago Bears stadium, Rep. Ugaste said the debate caused the public to begin discussion of a much larger issue: Illinois’ property tax system is broken, property taxes are too high, and they need to be fixed now.
“The Bears stadium discussion highlighted a problem that extends far beyond one project,” said Rep. Ugaste. “Illinois has some of the highest property taxes in America. Not only do those taxes make it harder to attract major investments, they also make life more expensive for every homeowner and make it difficult for our businesses to compete. This legislation addresses all these challenges.”
The proposal modifies the prior Megaprojects/Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILOT) framework to strengthen taxpayer protections, improve government transparency and accountability, and provide property tax reform for the rest of the state.
The two statewide property tax reforms included that will benefit every Illinois property owner—not just communities hosting a megaproject are:
• All property tax referendum questions would appear only on the November General Election ballot, ensuring the greatest possible voter participation.
• The practice of “back-door” bond rollovers would end, meaning there would be no more rolling over of bonds once they are paid. The local taxpaying body would instead have to go back to the public with a referendum if they wanted to again bond for more funds.
“The Bears helped expose a flaw in our system, but this legislation is about much more than football,” Ugaste said. “Illinois should be able to compete for major employers, corporate headquarters, advanced manufacturing, entertainment venues, research campuses, and other transformational investments without asking taxpayers to write a blank check. At the same time, we should be giving taxpayers property tax reform to help lower taxes.”
“While we need to create more economic development, we need to help and protect taxpayers,” Ugaste said. “This legislation does both. It creates a responsible framework for attracting world-class investment while strengthening local control, improving transparency, and advancing property tax reforms that benefit families and businesses throughout Illinois.”
“The Bears may have started this conversation, but the reforms in this bill are just the start of more reforms needed so Illinois can compete for other investments and give taxpayers across the state the property tax relief they need to make life more affordable.”
The legislation now awaits consideration in the Illinois General Assembly.
Rep. Dan Ugaste serves Illinois House District 65, which includes parts of Kane and DuPage counties. For more information, contact Rep. Ugaste’s office at 630-797-5530 or visit his website at repugaste.com.
The enclosed fact sheet is here. Please consult that before asking questions in comments.
* I asked our resident school-related expert commenter “JS Mill,” to give me some thoughts…
1. Limiting property tax referendums to November general elections really handcuffs schools. These issues take years to pass and when you genuinely need revenue, this reduces the chances and puts a big strain on schools and could lead to seriously unsafe facilities. as it is, most referenda take multiple attempts to pass these days, raising taxes is never popular no matter how much it is needed. Referenda for building bonds usually do better than Education Fund referenda but that isn’t saying much. Every election the IASA/IASB publish a spreadsheet with referenda results and it also includes they type of referenda. The results are not pretty. Districts do know that we do better in the off year elections but sowhat? That is usually when pour efforts pay off because motivated interested and informed voters vote most often, at least when it comes to school referenda. It isn’t our fault people are lazy or too disinterested to get out and vote.
2. I really don’t get the bond rollover issue. You definitely cannot do that with just any bond, and not all bonds require referenda. Working cash bonds and Health/Life/Safety bonds do not. New buildings always require referendum, additions do not. If you really want property tax reform, fund all schools. We get 83% of our funding through local property tax and 1% sales tax in Lee County. If the state even funding 50% (currently about 12% for us) we would drastically reduce our levy, but we can do that since we are not a PTELL district. PTELL needs to go as well. PTELL districts won’t lower their levy because it is so hard to capture the rate again when you need it. Bring back the school construction grant. That went away in the early 2000’s (I am pretty sure some districts are still waiting for their money from 2007). Those grants were as much as 50% of costs. Or extend the 1% facility sales tax tpo the entire state like Iowa does.
In the end, districts like ours wonder why the state has any business meddling in this stuff since they are barely a factor in funding for districts like ours. All they do is regulate but they have nearly no skin in the ga,
Ugaste is actually a pretty decent legislator, but his proposals would make a hard task nearly impossible.
Discuss.
- Save Ferris - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 9:53 am:
“Limiting property tax referendums to November general elections really handcuffs schools”
100% correct. Also, it would force decouple the funding vote from the board member vote. At present, school board votes are all at the March cycle, no? I’d think it would be in the voters’ interests to have the bonding on the same ballot as the people who propose it.
- Candy Dogood - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 10:16 am:
This is a relatively straight forward policy problem. Property taxes are high because the State Government does not adequately fund K-12 education. State Government does not adequately fund K-12 education because they do not collect enough income tax and also have other legislative priorities. The only real meaningful fix to this is to raise income taxes. There are a lot of ways to do that, and we even tried to change the constitution to make a progressive income tax structure. At that time, of course, someone told all of the stakeholders “don’t worry, I’ve got this” and then did in fact not have it, not get it, and is so burned by the experience he has communicated an interest that approaches zero in supporting another attempt. Oh, by the way, the most expensive tax expenditure for the state is the “third rail of politics” because in Illinois we believe on letting the folks most responsible for our fiscal concerns and unfunded pension liabilities run out on the check and are quite brazen about it.
In some fashion, you can say “your property taxes are high because we don’t want millionaires to pay taxes on their federally taxed retirement income” and it is an accurate statement.
Our state is challenged in that so many of our elected officials are only interested in leading from behind and unfortunately a lot of the folks severing in leadership positions are also interested or at least making a best effort to lead from behind.
Comprehensively addressing our tax structure which causes property taxes to be very high is something that requires the leaders to be in front and the folks that would be most appropriate to lead that effort to the front seem to be no where near the procession.
Besides our leaders preferring to follow where folks are already headed, another big problem we have here is that we seem to be willing to enact policy that screws younger folks for the benefit of older age cohorts and the wealthy. I get that, though, folks need to fund raise and the older cohorts tend to be more involved in the electoral process. Now that I write that out, I realize that is also just another example of leadership from behind.
Fixing the reliance on local property taxes to fund K-12 education has never been a priority. The discussion as to why just gets uglier the farther back in history we visit.
- Think Again - Monday, Jul 13, 26 @ 10:24 am:
=In some fashion, you can say “your property taxes are high because we don’t want millionaires to pay taxes on their federally taxed retirement income=
Is that you Frerichs ?