Daily Herald | Which suburbs levy highest taxes per person?

Jim Tobin, President of Taxpayers United for America, was quoted in an article from the Daily Herald on local property taxes.
DailyHeraldBarringtonHillsDede 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.

Colorado Watchdog | CO: Lawmakers battle secret pension issue

Rae Ann McNeilly, Executive Director for Taxpayers United for America, was quoted in an article by Colorado Watchdog on the lack of transparency in the state pension system.
Public employee pension data is so secret in Colorado that even State Treasurer Walker Stapleton was denied access when he wanted to evaluate a pension fund’s long-term viability.
So Stapleton sued the Public Employees’ Retirement Association  when it refused to divulge information on the top 20 percent of the earners — all former state employees.  A judge sided with PERA in April.
Stapleton has continued to fight in an appellate court and has garnered support from some in the Legislature who want to see the law changed.
The treasurer is still in the appeals process and will continue to fight for greater transparency,” Stapleton spokesman Michael Fortney told Colorado Watchdog. “Transparency is a good thing, (and) right now the treasurer is focused on his ongoing lawsuit to release important financial data.”
PERA does not disclose how much money specific pensioners receive. It is one of about 18 states that keep some — or all — of that information secret. PERA maintains it is simply abiding by state law.
“Colorado State statutes require that information contained in all individual PERA member and benefit recipient records be kept confidential,” PERA said in a statement.
When asked specifically what harm there is in making beneficiary information public, particularly when it’s funded in part by taxpayer dollars, a PERA official refused to discuss the issue other to say in an email that, “as a statutory plan, PERA must adhere to state law.
“The fact is that 80 percent of the dollars in the PERA trust fund come from the investment market and from member contributions — not taxpayers,” PERA spokeswoman Katie Kaufmanis said.
Colorado state Sen. Kent Lambert, a Republican on the Senate Appropriations and Joint Budget committees, has introduced bills aiming to increase transparency of PERA but the measures did not pass the Legislature. He said he plans to introduce similar bills in the upcoming session.
“I think there’s ample evidence that the system is far less solvent than it needs to be,” Lambert said. “I’d say the primary issue has been on the lavish amount of payoffs they have had for retirees that is unsustainable. They’ve fudged the numbers a bit for the annual rate of return … which makes it appear as if it’s more solvent” than it is.
What may force the issue of more transparency this year is that Democratic Gov.John Hickenlooper wants to look at a cost-of-living adjustment increase or some sort of salary increase for state workers.
“What I’ve been maintaining for a long time is that, under the law, if we’re looking at increasing salaries, we need to look at total compensation,” Lambert said.
This means the Legislature needs access to PERA information. That, “in combination with the fact that the Legislature and even the state treasurer as the chief financial officer of the state is not allowed access and oversight to the actual numbers,” is reason for concern, Lambert said.
Transparency helps rein in costs and ensures practices such as double-dipping are curbed.
“Double dipping” occurs when a retired public employee collects a pension while also collecting a paycheck by working a new job in the public sector. Although some action has been taken to curb double dipping, there is little to no chance, politically, that the legal practice to be eliminated anytime soon.
“The shroud of secrecy is by design — it’s to keep people from knowing,” saidRae Ann McNeilly, executive director of Taxpayers United of America. “The double dipping is a problem, but the biggest problem with the whole pension thing is, you’re paying so many people for so many years not to work. Mathematically, at any given time, if someone’s allowed to retire at 50 or 55 and the life expectancy is 85, you’re paying a pension of 35 years.
“At any given moment, you’re paying three people for the same job,” McNeilly added.
Barry Poulson, professor emeritus at the University of Colorado at Boulder,studied PERA while serving on a state commission and found that its secrecy prohibits reform of any kind.
“Everyone who’s ever tried to critically valuate their (PERA) program finds it difficult to find information,” Poulson said.  “We did take a close look at double dipping and we certainly found evidence of extensive double dipping … evidence at the local level, especially.”
The commission found many teachers, for example, who took retirement and were hired back as administrators or teachers. The practice was particularly prevalent at the University of Colorado. While there were restrictions for how much individuals could work in their post-retirement jobs and still collect their pensions, Poulson said, “it certainly was a big problem financially and imposed a significant burden on public-sector employers who ended up paying these bills.”
How big is the double-dipping problem?
This lack of information and transparency makes it impossible to determine just how prevalent a problem double dipping is in Colorado. A recent Colorado Watchdog investigation identified 36 double dippers benefiting both from theFire and Police Pension Association of Colorado and PERA.
“There’s this huge protection from the public, even the public employees’ whose job it is to know and understand,” McNeilly said. “This should put red flags all over the place as to what are they hiding? That’s key. That’s what we need to drill down on and drive home. … This is the complicated issue and this is how the pension scam has perpetuated for so many years.”
But ironically the Secretary of State’s Office disagrees on this point and says double dipping is no longer a huge issue because the state has laws to curb that practice.
SB 10-1, enacted during in 2010 by the Colorado General Assembly, now limits the number of days and hours a PERA retiree may work for a PERA employer. For most retirees this is 110 days, or 720 hours in a calendar year.
“PERA retirees are not limited if they work for an employer that is not affiliated with PERA,” Kaufmanis, the PERA spokewoman, said.
SB10-1 also aims to eliminate PERA’s unfunded liability in 30 years. PERA claims $23.5 billion of its $60.7 billion liabilities are unfunded. Lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of SB10-1, particularly on reduced cost-of-living-adjustment from 3.5 percent to 2 percent, are pending.
Many argue that if some want to return to work after spending such a large portion of their life as a public servant of sorts, they should be able to earn that pension and extra money if tooling around in the garage during retirement isn’t their thing. Others maintain that taxpayers still would be paying the salary of that person doing the post-retirement job, if it wasn’t a working retiree in that position. But double-dipping opponents say it’s more a moral issue.
“You’re a single employer paying a single employee. If the employee continues to work then they should relinquish their pension,” McNeilly said. “Is it legal? Perhaps so. Is it ethical? I think not. It doesn’t take a genius to say this isn’t fair to the taxpayers.”
While many pension-system critics lament the existence of double dipping, they agree it’s not the worst offender when it comes to reasons why Colorado’s pension system is in such dire straits.
“I think there are other ploys that public employees use that would be much more costly (than double dipping), like piling up their salary in the last years and using that as a base as their benefit,” Poulson said. “I think we need to address those problems — if for nothing else for equity — to bring public employees in line with private employees and benefits. And it in some ways would reduce costs … but those are Band-Aid solutions.”
PERA is one of the most underfunded pension plans in the country and will go bankrupt someday, Poulson charged.  Reform laws have little chances of getting through the Legislature because the Democrats control both houses, he said.
“One would hope that down the line, we see both Democrats and Republicans … take a look at this and say ‘this is not something we can continue and afford.’ But that’s sort of wishful thinking at the moment,” Poulson said.

ABC 7 Chicago | CDOT tests speed cameras at Chicago schools, parks

Jim Tobin, President of Taxpayers United for America, was quoted in a story from ABC 7 Chicago on Chicago’s new red light cameras.
December 3, 2012 (CHICAGO) (WLS) — There are some new reasons to watch your speed when driving through some Chicago neighborhoods.
Starting Monday, cameras will be monitoring how fast you drive.
For the next month, the city is testing speed cameras at certain intersections, but there is some good news if you get caught during the test period: No tickets. Not yet.
The city is moving forward with plans to have cameras monitor speed around parks and schools.
One of the experimental speed cameras is in front of the Near North Montessori School on Division. Jerome Manansala, the school’s director of safety and security, says there have been close calls — like last spring when he was crossing Division Street with a group of 3, 4 and 5-year-olds.
“We got lucky that we saw him in time and got the kids out of the way,” Manansala said.
There are four test cameras around the city near parks and schools. They will be in place for a month and the city will evaluate their use.
Jim Tobin with Taxpayers United of America is opposed to the speed cameras.
“It is a phony boloney argument for creating another tax,” said Tobin. “The speed cameras are just another tax on the backs of middle-class taxpayers.”
Some tell ABC7 the city is already doing enough issuing tickets, with red light cameras, and speeding cameras are too much.
“If the cops see people speeding, pull them over. I don’t think they have a right to send tickets through the mail,” said Leonard Yacona.
No one from the city would comment on camera on this issue.
There are two companies trying to get the city’s contract for speeding cameras. There are reports that one of those companies is having trouble in Baltimore with faulty equipment. No one from either company would make anyone available on camera.

    The cameras are situated at:

  • McKinley Park, 2223 W Pershing
  • Warren Park, 6541 N Western
  • Dulles Elementary, 6340 S King
  • Near North Montessori, 1446 W Division

The testing runs until January 3.
After our report aired, a spokesman for Xerox told ABC7:
“There is no faulty equipment in Baltimore, just human processing error. An added level of review is expected to address the matter.”

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