Illinois

Property taxes in Illinois, are LOCAL taxes. They are levied by local governmental bodies, and they are voted up or down by local elections. When you pay a property tax bill you are paying for local schools, local government, roads, bridges, libraries, mass transit, all that stuff outside the sphere of the state government. The state legislature does not get that money, and they do not control it.

But now, the Illinois Republicans want to step into that system.

Property tax has gone up as expenses have gone up. You have to pay to keep the lights on at City Hall, and you gotta pay to keep the employees paid, and the teachers have to be paid, the students transported to and from school, and the books purchased, and equipment updated, etc. Outside of Chicago (the tax code for Cook County is not the same as it is in the rest of the state) when you pay your taxes, roughly a third of that goes to pay for the schools and the local Jr. Colleges. "Freeze" that money, and you are handicapping those districts--driving them further into debt. The state has not paid what they owe the schools since ruiner went into office, and now they want to freeze schools' ability to raise funds while they duck out on their own legal responsibility to the schools. Not gonna lie, if he want to kill any public education in this state, I can't think of a more efficient way to do it.


Laura