Jim Tobin, President of Taxpayers United for America, was quoted in an article from the News Tribune on LaSalle County’s considered use of home rule.
OTTAWA — La Salle County Board members will begin discussion on reorganizing under “home rule” to give it broad taxation powers over the local sand mining industry.
The idea, which is only being whispered among some board members, involves a simple equation: several million tons of sand multiplied by a fee would presumably equal enough revenue to put the county in pristine financial shape.
But no county other than Cook County has passed a home rule referendum. In fact, it hasn’t been tried since 1976. And convincing the La Salle County electorate of giving its county board the taxing powers involved with home rule won’t be easy.
“At some point this year we will talk about it but I don’t think we have time to get it on the ballot (in April),” said county board chairman Jerry Hicks (D-Marseilles). “I need to look into what it’s all about. Our intent is not to increase the sin taxes or fuel taxes or anything of that nature. It’s to be specific in bringing in an income on frac sand mining unless the state legislature can do something to give us that authority.”
Constitutionally, home rule gives units of government freedom from state laws that bind or limit taxation authority.
For example, state law places a cap on how much a county can tax for particular line items such as the general fund. With home rule in place, those caps would not exist and the county could raise its levy at will without referendum. The same is true of sales taxes, selling bonds, and a multitude of other taxation and regulatory restrictions would be lifted as well.
Information on other counties opting for home rule status is limited because it hasn’t been attempted in decades, says Kelly Murray of Illinois Association of County Board Members and Commissioners.
“It’s always been a municipal issue,” Murray said. “Counties just haven’t sought home rule status in a long time so La Salle County might become a trendsetter.”
The proponents
Twice in the past decade researchers from Center for Governmental Studies at Northern Illinois University published studies that examined municipalities that had home rule status implemented.
The studies concluded that claims made by home rule opponents over the years that home rule would lead to the abuse of local taxing authority appear not to have been borne out in actual practice.
“There is no empirical evidence, from either the 2002 survey or from other studies made over the years, that suggests that home rule communities — even home rule communities which have levied property tax increases in excess of tax cap limitations — have experienced higher rates of property tax increases than have non-home rule communities,” the study stated.
“Instead, the evidence strongly suggests that, where home rule communities have used their broader taxing powers, they have done so to create a system of taxation more acceptable to local residents than a system based heavily on the use of property tax revenues.”
However, the potential of misuse of power through excessive taxation or overbearing regulatory authority as a result of home rule status will likely be a contentious issue among La Salle County voters.
The opposition
Ironically, a county in Illinois may only have home rule status if it has a chief executive officer elected at large and passes a home rule referendum.
La Salle County began electing its chairman at-large after a local activist group called La Salle County Landowners Association in 2006 led the ballot initiative to make the change. Back then, the effort was attempted to bust the stranglehold the local Democratic Party had on county politics and up the chances of reversing building codes and zoning ordinances.
Members of the Landowners have yet to make a statement publicly about how, or if, they will respond to the county’s home rule ballot drive.
Jim Tobin, President and founder of Taxpayers United of America, said several counties such as Peoria and De Kalb tried to pass home rule in the 1970s but each effort was soundly defeated by voters.
“It’s only been passed in Cook County and they’ve used it to batter their citizens with higher taxes,” Tobin said. “Home rule is home ruin. It is unlimited taxing powers. They can raise property taxes without limit or referendum. Issue bonds without limit — banks love home rule.”
Should La Salle County place on file a referendum to go for home rule, Tobin said Taxpayers United would get involved regardless of whether any local lobbying organizations get involved.
“We’ve successfully fought home rule efforts in many municipalities and we will get involved in La Salle County if they try to go for it,” he said.
Jim Tobin, President of Taxpayers United for America, was quoted in an article from the Daily Herald on local property taxes.
Dede Wamberg doesn’t mind that her hometown of Barrington Hills collects nearly $1,618 in property taxes in a year for every resident of the tony suburb.
She just wants the money spent wisely.
“I don’t think the taxes deter people from moving to the Barrington Hills area,” Wamberg said. “I’m just concerned when our tax dollars go toward things the majority of people in the community don’t use.”
In 2010, Barrington Hills collected roughly $6.8 million in property taxes, mainly from its 4,209 residents, according to the village’s property tax data.
“It’s cash and carry,” said Robert Kosin, Barrington Hills’ director of administration. “If you really wanted to see what you can buy with your property taxes, Barrington Hills would be the closest you could get since we don’t have a sales tax and no permitting (fees).”
Among 83 suburbs spread throughout six counties, Barrington Hills has the highest per capita property tax collection of any of the suburbs. Next is Rosemont at $1,382 per resident in 2010, but each year that village returns most, if not all, of the property taxes collected to its residents. South Barrington is next at $563 worth of property taxes collected per person. The average amount among the suburbs is about $283 per resident.
Per capita property taxes — the amount of taxes collected from all types of property owners divided by the population — is one measure that allows residents and government officials to gauge the cost of providing municipal services.
Compared to Barrington Hills, the flip side is Prospect Heights, where a little more than $16 was collected for each of the city’s 16,256 residents in 2010. That’s the lowest per capita amount among the 83 communities analyzed.
“We don’t really have a property tax,” said City Administrator Anne Marrin. “That money collected is a mandatory police pension tax to make the pension correct.”
Getting by on revenue generated by income, sales and motor fuel taxes has often been tricky for the community, Marrin said. At one point in the not-too-distant past, Prospect Heights closed its police station to the public because of funding problems that resulted in cutting staff. The city has since reopened the station.
“As the people of Prospect Heights have seen, when the economy tanks, people leave or have to because we don’t have the money to pay them,” she said. “It’s extremely hard not having a reliable form of revenue streams and being at the mercy of the economy.”
Staffing cuts were not uncommon in recent years throughout municipal government, where personnel is the greatest expense.
Jim Tobin, president of Taxpayers United of America, said lean times force local governments to focus limited resources on what’s important to the people who live in the communities.
“The more upset the apple cart becomes, the more likely we’ll get tax relief,” he said.
Nationally, Illinois ranked 30th among the states in per capita tax revenue collected in 2011. Over the past decade, the state’s ranking has fluctuated between having the 24th highest per capita figure and the 34th, according to data collected by the General Assembly’s Commission on Government Forecasting and Accountability.
The 2011 state income tax increase is likely to raise the state in rank to 18 in 2012, the commission predicts.
“Looking at these figures on a per capita basis allows you to compare Illinois with other states of comparable sizes and within the region,” said Dan Long, executive director of the commission.
Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson said his village’s higher-than-average per capita figure is the result of a large daytime employee population at the massive 5.5-square-mile business park. The village collected nearly $15.5 million in property taxes in 2010, or about $468 for each of its 33,127 residents, according to tax extension figures from the county clerk’s offices in Cook and DuPage counties.
“We have almost 100,000 people working in our business park, which takes up almost half our town,” he said. “Because of that we have two extra fire stations, 45 extra police officers, and our public works department is almost double what it would be at half our size.”
Johnson points to the village’s property tax rate as the true barometer of the village’s financial health, saying it’s one of the lowest in the suburbs.
“That’s where we’re good,” he said.
The financial welfare of government at all levels has been an ongoing hot-button issue. Tobin said he hears nothing but complaints about government spending. He believes residents need to educate themselves on governmental finances because the only way to make true changes is at the ballot box.
“Otherwise, we deserve what we have,” he said.
