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 Joe Tirio and his wife, Karen, run an in-home senior care
service in McHenry County, one of the most overtaxed counties in one of the most
overtaxed states in the nation.
He wasn’t planning to become a politician, but politics found the Woodstock
native. He recalls helping an elderly woman who just moved to the state.
“She got her tax bill and she asked me to come over and look at it because she
didn’t think she was looking at it right,” Tirio said. “She says it looks like
it says $7,900 for her 1,300-square-foot townhome. She said, ‘That 7 is a 1,
right? It should be $1,900?’ I said ‘nope.’ She almost fell over.”
Experiences like that – along with witnessing corrupt, wasteful local government
– led him to become McHenry County Recorder of Deeds, with the intention of
killing the superfluous political job. His effort succeeded, and the recorder
position will vanish Dec. 1, 2020. It will save Tirio’s neighbors a little on
their property tax bills.
“Is it going to change the way you live? Probably not,” Tirio said. “But is it a
step in the right direction, and should we overlook $100,000 in salary and
benefits and pensioners that could be on the rolls at any time?”
“We didn’t just eliminate the recorder’s position. We eliminated every
politician that was salivating to get into the office.”
Tirio in November comfortably won election as county clerk. He can’t eliminate
that office because of its statutory tie to the county’s existence, but he can
clean up waste and patronage driving up that elderly woman’s property taxes.
“When I think about the people in this county, that’s the face that I see.”
Property tax revolt
Another property tax bill created another McHenry County rebel.
McHenry resident Dan Aylward in 2016 was outraged by the county’s high property
taxes. He handed the treasurer’s office $5,734.18 in singles and change for his
property tax bill. He wanted to make a point.
“I will do this every year until my last breath,” he told the Northwest Herald
at the time. “[Raising property taxes] is wrong, it’s evil, and it’s gotta
stop.”
Homeowners in Chicago’s collar counties paid among the highest property taxes in
Illinois and the nation in 2017. McHenry County residents paid an average
effective rate of 2.82 percent – more than double the national average. The
median McHenry County property tax bill was $6,383 for a single-family home –
$1,442 more than the Illinois average.
Aylward teamed up with Tirio, Wonder Lake barber Bob Anderson and other McHenry
County activists to form the Illinois Tax Revolution. They encourage others to
follow Aylward’s property tax protest. Separately, Joe and Karen Tirio were
active in several grassroots campaigns against corruption and local waste,
founding and leading the group “Voters in Action,” which focuses on increasing
public awareness and making it easier for citizens to act.
The grassroots’ revolution first turned into results at the ballot box in 2017.
Algonquin Township Highway Commissioner Bob Miller’s half century of rule ended
amid increased scrutiny of his record of patronage and waste. For decades Miller
won easy election and used taxpayer money on frivolous personal items – such as
Disneyland tickets, liquor and women’s clothing – and hired members of his
family to high-priced township positions.
“What do these people make? [Township officials] up here in McHenry, Nunda,
Grafton townships… you have people making upwards of $100,000. To me these would
be clerical positions,” said Jamie Grubich, McHenry resident and township
consolidation advocate. “There needs to be me and 50,000 other people in
Illinois saying the same thing.”
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Anderson in 2017 led a slate of candidates to win
township board seats on the platform of abolishing the McHenry
Township Road District and combining its services with the rest of
the township. The road district had its own share of patronage and
waste.
McHenry Township Road Commissioner Jim Condon hired
the son of Nunda Township Highway Commissioner Mike Lesperance to an
unlisted position. Soon after voters ousted Miller, Condon handed
him a $40-per-hour consultant position. When Anderson and the other
reformers on the township board asked Condon about the hires, he
replied, “Do you have a problem with that?”
McHenry County has 17 townships, local layers of government valued
in the 1800s but that now are often redundant and too often corrupt.
Nunda, Algonquin and nearby Grafton townships have all faced
criminal investigations. The McHenry County state’s attorney in
March wrote in a report that the township form of government is full
of “incompetence, guile and impropriety.” He didn’t have enough
evidence to bring criminal charges, but recommended township
consolidation to fix the deep flaws.
Anderson got a referendum on the ballot in November to kill the
McHenry Township Road District, but his effort was outspent and came
up short.
“We found out when government is established, how difficult it is to
remove it,” Anderson told supporters on election night.
But the insurgents have new hope. House Bill 4637 is on the
governor’s desk. If signed, it would make it much easier for
residents to abolish townships in McHenry County. Instead of
gathering petition signatures from 10 percent of the voters in each
of the county’s 17 townships just to eliminate one township,
residents would only need 5 percent of the voters’ signatures and
only from the targeted township to force a consolidation vote.
“The people who say you can’t fight city hall are the people in city
hall,” Tirio said. “Because they don’t want you fighting. The fact
is it doesn’t take that much effort to really fight city hall. There
are more people like you than you know until you get out there and
you get to know them. And before you know it, the numbers just
multiply.”
Stay or go
Fed-up taxpayers can complain, they can revolt, or they can head for
the exits.
Between 2010 and 2017, McHenry County – like the counties around it
and the state at large – has seen serious domestic net outmigration.
In that time frame, the county lost more than 11,000 residents on
net to other areas. New U.S. Census estimates show Illinois again
lost population in 2018, the fifth straight year and at the rate of
a plane full of people leaving every day for another state.
There is little doubt the exodus is driven by the intense tax
burden. Residents told pollsters that taxes are their No. 1 reason
for wanting to leave.
“It makes me sad to think there’s a possibility that I might not
want to live here,” said Grubich, who for now is staying and aiding
the local policy revolution. “I liked having my roots in one spot. I
like being able to give my kids that feeling of being comfortable in
one spot. We have a solid 8-10 years to really want to remain here
for those reasons.”
While he understands why people are heading for the exits, Tirio
said it’s worth staying and fighting for reform.
“Illinois is a great state,” Tirio said. “The natural gifts that we
have – the great land, the access to water, it’s a beautiful place,
we have a world class city and it’s centrally located. All that
stuff. People should be leaving the desert to come here.”
“We aren’t ready to leave without a fight. We aren’t about to let a
bunch of blankety blank politicians steal our state, steal our home,
without a good fight.”
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