Twenty years ago, while working as a reporter for a Joliet newspaper, I rode on a bus to Springfield with activists who demanded property tax reform.
They demonstrated in the Illinois State Capitol. Then-Gov. George Ryan met with some of the protesters and listened to their concerns. The activists were ministers, parents, teachers, senior citizens, Blacks, whites, Hispanics, men and women. They were all Illinois residents fed up with high property taxes.
Twenty years later, little has changed. High property taxes remain a top concern, especially among residents in the south and southwest suburbs.
Participants in a town hall teleconference Wednesday evening discussed high property taxes and how a graduated-rate income tax would help address fairness and equity concerns. The League of Women Voters of Illinois and others presented the hourlong forum.
“The league has actually been supporting having a graduated income tax for the past 50 years,” said Jean Pierce, who co-chairs the league’s issues and advocacy committee.
The league and other groups are part of a coalition, Vote Yes for Fair Tax, that encourages people to support the referendum on the ballot.
“We’ve been giving dozens of presentations about this,” Pierce said.
Education funding is at the core of the issue, she said. If the state increased education funding, school districts could reduce their tax levies and ease the property tax burden on residents, she said.
“What’s wrong about the system currently is two things, it’s unfair and it’s inadequate,” she said.
Reform advocates encourage voters to support a referendum that would amend the 1970 Illinois Constitution to allow for something other than a flat tax rate for everyone, regardless of income.
“We can’t modernize the system until we change the constitution,” Pierce said.
Mario Reed of South Holland grew up in the well-known Chinese House of Park Forest. He’s an attorney who handles property tax appeals. Opponents of a graduated income tax who insist a flat rate for everyone is more fair should also demand flat rates for property taxes, he said.
“To anyone saying, ‘Let’s all pay the same percentage,’ I say fine, let’s do that across the board for all taxes,” Reed said. “I want to pay the same property tax percentage that Burr Ridge does, even though I live in South Holland.”
The property tax rate in Reed’s hometown of Park Forest is 35.7%, the highest in Cook County. Burr Ridge has the county’s lowest tax rate, at 7.1%.
“The south suburbs of Chicago have the highest composite property tax rates anywhere in the United States of America,” Reed said. “I’m perfectly OK if everyone says let’s have the same flat tax rate, so long as we do it for everything, including property taxes.”
The skewed rates contribute to disparities in funding for schools and other services, he said.
“Most of us spend far more on property taxes than we do on income taxes,” he said. “That’s the system we have. Our funding model is simply wrong.”
State Rep. Debbie Meyers-Martin, D-Matteson, said wealthy opponents of the fair tax referendum have been putting out a lot of misinformation about potentially increasing income tax rates for everyone or taxing retirement income.
“There is no political will in Springfield for raising income taxes,” she said.
On the contrary, legislators face increasing pressure to do something about high property taxes, she said.
“The state really does need to find a better way to fund education than we currently do,” she said. “It is constitutionally required that the state do so.”
Town hall participants said another myth is that politicians should do more to reduce expenses rather than increase revenues.
“You can only cut so much,” Meyers-Martin said.
Pierce said state lawmakers have slashed spending across the board.
“We’ve seen decreases in funding for core services over the past 20 years,” she said.
The state has cut funding for higher education by 48%, for health care by 18%, for public safety by 20% and human services by 14.7%, she said.
“Some people say, ‘You should just cut spending.’ Well, where are you going to cut it? We’ve already endured horrific cuts over the past 20 years in our core services,” she said.
On average, property taxes account for 66% of revenue for schools, compared to 44% in other states, Pierce said.
If voters approve the referendum to amend the constitution, the state could impose higher tax rates on people earning $250,000 or more per year, Pierce said. The change would increase state revenue by about $3 billion per year, and 97% of taxpayers would pay the same or lower tax rates on their income, she said.
“We are not giving them any new power,” Pierce said of lawmakers. “They have always had the power to raise taxes.”
Illinois is one of the few states that has a flat income tax, presenters said. Thirty-two states and the federal government tax wealthier people at higher rates than lower-income earners, presenters said.
Holly Fingerle, co-founder of Save Our Southland and chair of Indivisible South Suburban, moderated the forum. A video recording of the town hall was publicly available Thursday on a Save Our Southland YouTube channel.
Ted Slowik is a columnist for the Daily Southtown.
