GOP calls property-tax task force 'woeful failure'
House Minority Leader Durkin admits ‘there’s nothing that they could offer us’ to support Gov. Pritzker’s fair tax
House Minority Leader Jim Durkin and state Reps. Tom Morrison, Deanne Mazzochi, and Grant Wehrli launch into the Property Tax Relief Task Force. (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
By Ted Cox
CHICAGO — House Republicans in the General Assembly dismissed the Property Tax Relief Task Force formed by Gov. Pritzker last summer as a “woeful failure” at a news conference Wednesday at the Thompson Center.
House Minority Leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs said 26 Republican proposals for property-tax reform had been “summarily rejected” by the task force.
But at the same time he admitted, “There’s nothing that they could offer us” in the way of property-tax relief that could possibly move Republicans toward “support of the fair tax” backed by Pritzker and slated to go before voters in a referendum this fall.
Providing property-tax relief is considered one of the keys to passage of a graduated income tax, which is expected to provide more than $3 billion in new state revenue, to be paid by the top 3 percent of Illinois wage earners making more than $250,000 a year. But it will need to pass by a 60 percent supermajority to amend the state constitution to allow a progressive income tax.
The task force was charged with finding ways to lower local property taxes after a bill that would have frozen property taxes with passage of the fair tax failed to clear the General Assembly earlier last year.
Rep. Sam Yingling of Palatine, chairman of the task force, told the Chicago Tribune the criticism was premature in that the committee had only prepared a draft and had not arrived at its final findings, saying, “We want and need input from Republicans.”
In fact, one of the first things Durkin mentioned at Wednesday’s news conference was the state’s 7,000 separate taxing bodies drawing on property taxes — more than any other state — and the need to eliminate redundant agencies such as the Lyons Township School Treasurer’s Office, which he said he’s been trying to eradicate for years.
Yet one of the top suggestions for reforms in the preliminary draft is “consolidating governmental taxing districts,” according to the Associated Press, which obtained a copy of the draft earlier this week. Others include “standardizing property-value assessments, tightening up the appeals process, and reining in breaks on commercial redevelopments.”
Rep. Deanne Mazzochi of Elmhurst took issue with how there was no real debate on the task force and no vote taken on its final findings. It also blew deadlines for both an initial report and a final report originally set to be delivered by the end of the year. “Are these Democrats serious about property-tax reform? I suggest they are not,” Mazzochi said. “This is such a procedural mishmash and lackadaisical approach.”
“Are these Democrats serious about property-tax reform? I suggest they are not.”
Rep. Deanne Mazzochi (One Illinois/Ted Cox)
Durkin said, “I am convinced that there was really no process at all.”
Again, however, the task force’s final recommendations are yet to be formally released, and the Governor’s Office responded with a statement saying: “The governor appreciates the work of the property-relief task force and looks forward to continuing productive conversations around property-tax relief this session. In the meantime, the governor has already been hard at work alleviating Illinoisans’ local property-tax burdens. For example, funding local schools makes up nearly 60 percent of the total property-tax burden; Gov.Pritzker has increased state support for school funding to historic levels. The second-largest driver in local property taxes is municipal pensions, and the governor passed historic pension consolidation that will help municipalities address spiraling pension burdens with improved returns and efficiencies.”
Pritzker’s office added that another driver of local property taxes is the cost of maintaining infrastructure, and local governments will benefit from the $45 billion Rebuild Illinois capital plan approved last year. He also pointed out that the bill establishing the fair tax includes “actual property-tax relief for homeowners, increasing the existing tax credit by 20 percent.”
Nonetheless, Rep. Grant Wehrli of Naperville charged that at least nine times between 1975 and 2018 the state government conducted commissions and task forces to examine local property taxes, only to take no action.
“This is the standard playbook of the Democratic Party,” he said, “a task force that accomplishes absolutely nothing.”
It should be pointed out that, over much of that time and in years he cited, Republicans held the Governor’s Mansion if not one or both houses of the General Assembly.
“What they are proposing is new higher taxes in order to somehow disguise it as property-tax relief,” Wehrli said. “I look forward to seeing them thread that needle.”
That is exactly part of the case Pritzker and Illinois progressives are trying to make in the long-awaited and ever-elusive “grand bargain” trading adequate state government funding for potential reductions in local property taxes.
According to Mazzochi, some of the Republican proposals rejected by the task force included additional pension reforms, enhanced transparency of property-tax bills, and relief for seniors. She blamed the “skyrocketing number of new unfunded mandates” the General Assembly forced on local governments and especially school districts for rising property taxes. But with additional funding the state should be able to fund at least some of those mandates, such as the allowances for pinched school districts to obtain more funding to meet the $40,000 minimum teacher salary passed last year.
Durkin said Republicans would not attempt to issue their own minority report on the task force. “We’re not issuing a minority report, because that would mean that we would recognize that there was a majority report,” he said.
He was also adamant about his opposition to the fair tax, saying, “I don’t support the fair tax. Ultimately, it’s going to hurt Illinoisans. Our members don’t support (it), and there’s nothing that they could offer us in support of the fair tax. It’s misguided.”
Pritzker’s office, however, continued to reach across the party divide, stating: “Since taking office, the governor has had an open-door policy for lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to discuss their ideas and priorities with him. He continues to welcome any and all ideas for property-tax reform from all members of the General Assembly.”