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* Gov. Rauner’s office…
Governor Rauner and Orland Park Mayor Keith Pekau joined homeowners Ken and Andi Borucke to urge the General Assembly to pass true, lasting property tax relief.
“Illinois home and business owners pay the highest property taxes in the nation. The median average for property taxes in Illinois is $3,995 compared to $1,085 average property taxes in Indiana,” said Governor Rauner. “We can’t just keep sticking it to the taxpayers without any real property tax relief.”
Under the governor’s proposal, property taxes would remain frozen unless voters chose to raise them through a referendum.
“In Orland Park, we remain committed to keeping your taxes as low as possible while still maintaining the quality of services you expect and deserve,” said Mayor Keith Pekau. “I am glad the Governor is pushing for property tax relief to help our residents.”
This week, Governor Rauner announced that any budget agreement that increases revenue must include real and lasting property tax relief. In making the announcement, he stressed that Illinois needs to make changes in order to grow the economy, create jobs and get state finances back on track.
“We love Illinois, but one thing we’ve never loved is our property taxes,” said homeowner Andi Borucke. “The current system doesn’t work and hurts working families like ours that have done everything right. We deserve to have more a voice in our property tax system. We keep paying more and more money, but see little value in return.”
* DGA…
Today Governor Rauner continues his campaign “negotiation” tour with a stop in Orland Park, 181 miles away from the State Capitol and a possible budget solution.
While Rauner postures in front of cameras, Illinois state institutions continue to suffer the disastrous effects of Bruce Rauner’s failed leadership. The “Women’s Center” in Carbondale, open for 45 years, announced staff cuts and said it could shut down programs in September. And Northeastern Illinois University announced it would be continuing its furlough program and faced serious program cuts.
The fact is simple – Governor Rauner is failing his responsibilities as Governor. From the Sun-Times Editorial:
“Rauner is running political ads, the goofy ones with the duct tape, laying the groundwork for his re-election next year. But he is not governing. As we said in a previous editorial, the first and most basic job of a CEO — and a governor is a CEO — is to produce a budget. The buck stops there.”
It’s time for Governor Rauner to go back to Springfield and finally pass a budget.
“Governor Rauner is marching Illinois towards an unprecedented third year without a budget,” said DGA Illinois Communications Director Sam Salustro. “And instead of exhibiting real leadership and working out a deal, Rauner is pulling stunts as far away from Springfield as possible. Illinois needs a Governor who’s going to deliver a budget, not one who’s going to chase cameras across the state.”
…Adding… From comments…
Uh, someone tell DGA the House just went home and session tomorrow is cancelled.
Oops!
posted by Rich Miller
Friday, May 26, 17 @ 11:36 am
Sorry, comments are closed at this time.
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Uh, someone tell DGA the House just went home and session tomorrow is cancelled.
Comment by odd Friday, May 26, 17 @ 11:41 am
I’m sure Rauner has not thought of this. If property taxes go down, how are schools and other things going to be funded? Wouldn’t you have to raise sales tax and income tax rates.
Comment by Valvino Friday, May 26, 17 @ 11:47 am
===someone tell DGA the House just went home===
Hilarious.
Oops!!!
Comment by Rich Miller Friday, May 26, 17 @ 11:51 am
== I’m sure Rauner has not thought of this. If property taxes go down, how are schools and other things going to be funded? ==
By pushing a property tax freeze, the obvious conclusion is Rauner wants schools and local governments cut / defunded.
If he truly wanted to reduce local property taxes, he would be calling for a much higher State income tax in exchange for reduced and capped school property taxes.
Comment by RNUG Friday, May 26, 17 @ 11:54 am
Right, originally, the property tax freeze was tied to anti-union “reforms” that would create the savings necessitated by the revenue freeze, but since the election’s coming up and that “muddies the message” Rauner’s now asking for a “clean” property tax freeze.
Comment by Grand Avenue Friday, May 26, 17 @ 12:00 pm
I believe property taxes are high in Illinois because the State isn’t paying its share of education.
But I also believe they’re high because of the number of local units of government including school districts.
Rauner had the Lt. Governor look into this but what has that produced?
I suppose a freeze could reduce the number, but not in a thoughtful, logical way.
That’s what passes for “governing” in Illinois.
Comment by Sir Reel Friday, May 26, 17 @ 12:10 pm
I was curious about the median home value for Indiana and Illinois so I used the Google. He is what I found….
Per Zwillow-
Median home value in Indiana is $120,600
Up 3.3% in the last year.
Illinois median value per Zwillow $169,400
Up 5.6% in the last year.
The median house value in Illinois is 29% higher and, with everyone leaving, housing values are climbing faster in Illinois.
Kind of counter intuitive. /snark
Any who, Indiana’s median property tax is 1/3 of Illinois so that is quite a difference.
What is the difference between Illinois counties income tax and Indiana? 100% since Illinois counties do not have one.
Point being, you can cherry pick a lot of data, but Illinois is not Indiana and vice versa. Our economy is three times the size and expanding, in GDP dollars, faster than Indiana.
With all of our problems, I will still stay here that way we will have somebody to shut the lights off./s
Comment by JS Mill Friday, May 26, 17 @ 12:10 pm
== I’m sure Rauner has not thought of this. If property taxes go down, how are schools and other things going to be funded? ==
He’s thought of this, this is by design. He hopes to starve local government, including school districts, to force pay cuts. Remember, the House repeatedly approved a property tax freeze using Rauner’s language in the bill, with one exception. And each time Rauner decried the move as a political stunt. The reason is the one exception, the bill didn’t include Rauner’s language to eliminate collective bargaining on wages for local government.
Rauner claims, and the press writes it this way because it’s a convenient shorthand, that his prerequisite for a budget is a property tax freeze. But that’s not true, he’s repeatedly torpedoed a property tax freeze. He wants a property tax freeze if and only if it reduces wages for local government. So his prerequisite isn’t the property tax freeze, it’s the elimination of collective bargaining on wages dressed up as a property tax freeze.
It’s pretty repugnant that a guy who made $188 million last year from a blind trust’s overriding political philosophy is that people who work for a living make too much money and that he’s willing to purposely drive the state into the ground to fix that, but here we are.
And remember, if the Democrats cave and give him his mandatory win on lowering the wages of people who work for a living he will then allow the double whammy of an income tax increase, which in Illinois is a regressive flat tax. This is why the Democrats who stand up to him have my full, unwavering support and this is why the Democratic position in this political war is as entrenched as it is.
Comment by The Captain Friday, May 26, 17 @ 12:14 pm
=== He hopes to starve local government===
Last I checked, local governments were sitting on $15 billion in cash reserves.
Comment by Rich Miller Friday, May 26, 17 @ 12:48 pm
The property tax freeze is just a way to choke local governments into downsizing, privatization and union-busting because they will be dependent on state funds that will never come. Chicago will be the next Detroit.
Time for a clean state budget without turnaround agenda political strings attached. NEIU is canceling furloughs and laying people off now.
Comment by Thomas Griffin Friday, May 26, 17 @ 12:52 pm
== Last I checked, local governments were sitting on $15 billion in cash reserves. ==
According to the State School report Card there are about 2,000,00 public school students in Illinois with an average cost of $12,800 per year.
When you Google “2,000,000 x 12,800 in words” the result is twenty-five billion six hundred million ($25.6 billion)
$15 billion in reserves covers about 7 months.
Then what?
Comment by Hamlet's Ghost Friday, May 26, 17 @ 1:49 pm
===$15 billion in reserves covers about 7 months.===
Um, do you have a problem with basic arithmetic? Nobody’s talking about rescinding all property taxes, which is the only thing that would make your comment relevant.
Comment by Rich Miller Friday, May 26, 17 @ 1:52 pm
I imagine I 80 is crowded with moving vans for people to get lower valued homes…
Comment by Liberty Friday, May 26, 17 @ 2:22 pm
My take is that Rauner’s call for a property tax freeze is a ploy to distract voters from seeing the big picture in IL’s overall revenue system. He sees it as a vote getter, because people are rightly frustrated with high property taxes. It also distracts voters from seeing the connection between our low and flat income tax and high property taxes.
Now here’s what he doesn’t want voters to see. The Rauners’ 2015 IL taxable income was $188 million on which they paid $6.9 million, or 3.67%. Using sources posted by Rich, their total 2015 property tax (for their Winnetka house and their penthouse, condo, and 3 parking spaces at 340 E Randolph) was $154,336, or 0.08% of taxable income. Their overall tax burden was, therefore, 3.75% plus whatever state and local sales tax and excise fees they paid. That information is not available, but we can be reasonably sure that their overall state and local tax rate was well below 4%. The average tax rate in IL, about 10%, is more than 2.5 times higher the Rauners’. This is a nonpartisan issue, it’s a mathematical certainty that investigation of Pritzker or Griffen or anyone else in the top 1% would produce a similar picture.
- I think Rauner is most interested in keeping the IL income tax low and flat. As for shrinking local government outside Winnetka, I honestly think he doesn’t give a hoot. Just as he doesn’t care about the harm he is currently doing to social services, universities, the state’s debt, etc.
- The next on-the-ball reporter to interview the governor should ask him why he thinks the average taxpayer should be taxed at a rate 2.5 times higher than he and Diane.
- Dem candidates should also raise this issue. In particular, it would be very interesting to learn whether JB is willing to take on this issue. The answer would speak volumes as to whether he is really a progressive billionaire.
Comment by X-prof Friday, May 26, 17 @ 2:33 pm
I’m sure Bruce knew nothing about Keith Pekau’s backing by Dan Proft. Nothing at all!
Comment by Precinct Captain Friday, May 26, 17 @ 3:06 pm
So, is Mayor Keith Pekau saying he cannot be trusted to tax appropriately? If he’s not to be trusted with this important authority, why is he mayor?
Comment by Pot calling kettle Friday, May 26, 17 @ 3:58 pm
=Last I checked, local governments were sitting on $15 billion in cash reserves.=
Fair enough, but what was that number two or three years ago?
Under Quinn we had to report our reserves once. Everyone knew what that was for, we were going to get shorted and he was trying to gauge how long we could hold out.
That $15 billion number represents serious disparity. U-46 had $500 million of that at one time. Only a handful of districts represented about $1 billion in reserves while others were already borrowing to pay current bills.
In that time some districts have continued to add to their reserves as well.
How much of those reserves are held outside of Cook and the collar counties?
The $15 billion tells a story but you have to drill down to really understand it.
Comment by JS Mill Friday, May 26, 17 @ 4:19 pm
Would property tax freezes work both ways?
I don’t want to pick on the Borucke’s real hard; but they put themselves out there on this. Their property taxes are all over, up, down. Almost $8k on a $287k house one year, no envy for that bill… But they went down almost 10% in ‘12 and ‘13. A true ‘freeze’ would keep them from maybe getting lower taxes in some of the years, wouldn’t it?
Comment by Shark Sandwich Friday, May 26, 17 @ 4:20 pm