Friday, January 13, 2006
Dundee Township Assessment Hikes Prompt “Scare Story” in the Daily Herald; District 300 Referendum Backers Probably in Shock, Too
Assessments in Dundee Township have gone “up as much as 25%,” which the story’s lead paragraph says, “…translate…unhappily, to higher taxes.”
Well, not necessarily.
That would have been the case before the Property Tax Cap was passed.
When Crystal Lake High School District 155 saw its assessment base increase by 17% the year before the Tax Cap went into effect (1992), it hiked its tax request by 17% and got it.
Now, when assessments on current property increase 20%, the local school district cannot squeeze 20% more out of the homeowners. If everyone’s assessment goes up 20%, a homeowner’s share of the total tax bill remains pretty much the same.
Any increase is mostly dependent on the increase in the Consumer Price Index. District 300 and all other non-Home Rule units (Cook County and municipalities over 25,000 people and others where voters have approved Home Rule status by referendum), are limited in how much more money they can get. The limit is the Tax Cap, not the increase in assessed valuation on current property.
The “extension,” that is, the amount of money that a tax district can obtain, cannot increase more than the increase in the Consumer Price Index. If it goes up 3%, expect your tax bill to go up 3%. You can pretty much ignore the increase in assessed valuation.
A parentheses: Tax districts can have their total “tax take” increase more than the CPI, but the extra comes from new construction or when a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district expires.
For example, when the Sears TIF expires in 2012, $10-12 million probably will pour into District 300’s coffers. Notice that District 300 is not stressing that major forthcoming boost in revenue.
And, individual homeowners who live in neighborhoods where property has appreciated faster than elsewhere in the township may end up with a tax hike higher than the increase in the CPI. That’s because their homes will be bearing a larger proportion of the total tax load.
Offsetting their larger than average increase, however, will parts of the township where housing inflation was less than average. Conversely, their tax bills will increase by less than the CPI.
Back in 1972, I was running for state representative for the first time. The 33rd district stretched into five counties—McHenry, Kane, Boone, DeKalb and Winnebago.
Incumbent Bruce Waddell lived just over the county line in Dundee Township and Les (“Get More with Les”) lived in Belvidere, where he previously had been mayor.
McHenry County Auditor Jack Schaffer was running for state senator.
With the assistance of McHenry County Republican Central Committee chairman Al Jourdan, a deal had been cut to re-elect the two incumbent GOP state representatives and install Schaffer as state senator.
I got a call from newly-minted attorney Boyd Gates. His boss, who lived at the top of the hill in Dundee Township had taken quite a hit in the re-assessment. He told Gates to give Cal Skinner a call, because he had read that I had successfully helped McHenry County homeowners to appeal their assessments to the State Property Tax Appeals Board when I was County Treasurer.
I was anxious to make inroads into Bruce Waddell’s home base and I found the taxpayers were just thirsting for information about how to appeal their assessments.
I brought Gates up to speed on how to appeal assessments. He would give the legal advice at the meetings after I told those attending what I had accomplished in McHenry County.
We gathered a core group, which discovered that a local newspaper owner, Ed Richardson, who was also quite disturbed. He agreed to print a broadside that I pretty much wrote called, “The Aroused Citizen.” We had enough volunteers to hit virtually every home in Dundee Township.
It told how to appeal one’s assessment and advertised three open meetings we would hold over six days.
Monday was in the basement of the Congregational Church, I think. Among those most outraged was Sleepy Hollow’s Bob Shields, who was later elected Dundee Township Assessor as a result of the assessment uproar.
Wednesday we moved to a church with a balcony, right across from the Historical Society, if memory serves me correctly. It was packed.
Saturday, we were at St. Monica’s. It was 15 degrees below zero, but there were so many people trying to get in the parking lot that Carpentersville police were out on Route 25 directing traffic. I am sure people got turned away at the door.
The local folks enlisted real estate agents to help homeowners fill out their appeal forms to the Kane County Board of Review and, later, to the State Property Tax Appeals Board. Gates represented them, putting him on track to be an expert in the field.
He was so good that he even beat James R. Thompson in the first case--in Elgin’s appellate court—that Thompson undertook after leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office to run for governor. (Winston & Straun reportedly was paying him $50,000 a year while he was running for office.)
Well, not necessarily.
That would have been the case before the Property Tax Cap was passed.
When Crystal Lake High School District 155 saw its assessment base increase by 17% the year before the Tax Cap went into effect (1992), it hiked its tax request by 17% and got it.
Now, when assessments on current property increase 20%, the local school district cannot squeeze 20% more out of the homeowners. If everyone’s assessment goes up 20%, a homeowner’s share of the total tax bill remains pretty much the same.
Any increase is mostly dependent on the increase in the Consumer Price Index. District 300 and all other non-Home Rule units (Cook County and municipalities over 25,000 people and others where voters have approved Home Rule status by referendum), are limited in how much more money they can get. The limit is the Tax Cap, not the increase in assessed valuation on current property.
The “extension,” that is, the amount of money that a tax district can obtain, cannot increase more than the increase in the Consumer Price Index. If it goes up 3%, expect your tax bill to go up 3%. You can pretty much ignore the increase in assessed valuation.
A parentheses: Tax districts can have their total “tax take” increase more than the CPI, but the extra comes from new construction or when a Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district expires.
For example, when the Sears TIF expires in 2012, $10-12 million probably will pour into District 300’s coffers. Notice that District 300 is not stressing that major forthcoming boost in revenue.
And, individual homeowners who live in neighborhoods where property has appreciated faster than elsewhere in the township may end up with a tax hike higher than the increase in the CPI. That’s because their homes will be bearing a larger proportion of the total tax load.
Offsetting their larger than average increase, however, will parts of the township where housing inflation was less than average. Conversely, their tax bills will increase by less than the CPI.
Back in 1972, I was running for state representative for the first time. The 33rd district stretched into five counties—McHenry, Kane, Boone, DeKalb and Winnebago.
Incumbent Bruce Waddell lived just over the county line in Dundee Township and Les (“Get More with Les”) lived in Belvidere, where he previously had been mayor.
McHenry County Auditor Jack Schaffer was running for state senator.
With the assistance of McHenry County Republican Central Committee chairman Al Jourdan, a deal had been cut to re-elect the two incumbent GOP state representatives and install Schaffer as state senator.
I got a call from newly-minted attorney Boyd Gates. His boss, who lived at the top of the hill in Dundee Township had taken quite a hit in the re-assessment. He told Gates to give Cal Skinner a call, because he had read that I had successfully helped McHenry County homeowners to appeal their assessments to the State Property Tax Appeals Board when I was County Treasurer.
I was anxious to make inroads into Bruce Waddell’s home base and I found the taxpayers were just thirsting for information about how to appeal their assessments.
I brought Gates up to speed on how to appeal assessments. He would give the legal advice at the meetings after I told those attending what I had accomplished in McHenry County.
We gathered a core group, which discovered that a local newspaper owner, Ed Richardson, who was also quite disturbed. He agreed to print a broadside that I pretty much wrote called, “The Aroused Citizen.” We had enough volunteers to hit virtually every home in Dundee Township.
It told how to appeal one’s assessment and advertised three open meetings we would hold over six days.
Monday was in the basement of the Congregational Church, I think. Among those most outraged was Sleepy Hollow’s Bob Shields, who was later elected Dundee Township Assessor as a result of the assessment uproar.
Wednesday we moved to a church with a balcony, right across from the Historical Society, if memory serves me correctly. It was packed.
Saturday, we were at St. Monica’s. It was 15 degrees below zero, but there were so many people trying to get in the parking lot that Carpentersville police were out on Route 25 directing traffic. I am sure people got turned away at the door.
The local folks enlisted real estate agents to help homeowners fill out their appeal forms to the Kane County Board of Review and, later, to the State Property Tax Appeals Board. Gates represented them, putting him on track to be an expert in the field.
He was so good that he even beat James R. Thompson in the first case--in Elgin’s appellate court—that Thompson undertook after leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office to run for governor. (Winston & Straun reportedly was paying him $50,000 a year while he was running for office.)
# posted by Cal Skinner : 7:42 PM
