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 Taxpayers in McHenry County could soon gain a tool to cut a
form of local government that is often inefficient at best and corrupt at worst.
House Bill 4637 would relax requirements for residents to abolish townships in
McHenry County. On Nov. 14 it passed a Senate committee 11-6, and will advance
for a full Senate vote.
The bill first arrived in the Senate in April, after having cleared the Illinois
House of Representatives with bipartisan support. Co-sponsors of the bill
include state Reps. David McSweeney, R-Barrington Hills; Sam Yingling,
D-Grayslake; and Allen Skillicorn, R-East Dundee.
McHenry County is home to 17 townships. Under HB 4637, each of those townships’
board of trustees could place a referendum asking to eliminate the township on
voters’ ballots. Were voters to opt for consolidation, the results would be
binding, with the county absorbing the dissolved township’s duties and
responsibilities.
But HB 4637 would also make it easier for taxpayers to start the consolidation
process. Currently, residents looking to dissolve their township must collect
signatures from 10 percent of the registered voters who participated in the last
comparable election, and they must hit that 10-percent mark in each of the
county’s 17 townships. If HB 4637 becomes law, residents would only need 5
percent of registered voters and only from the targeted township.
The bill would also provide a path toward property tax relief if voters opt for
consolidation. Under the bill, township consolidation would come with a property
tax levy reduction of at least 10 percent: The taxing authority of both the
dissolved township and its road district would be capped at 90 percent of their
original levies before transferring to the county.
This provision should find warm reception among residents of McHenry County,
where property taxes may be depressing the region’s housing market. A recent
study by ATTOM Data Solutions pegged the median McHenry County property tax bill
at $6,383 for a single-family home – $1,442 more than the state average.
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Moreover, townships in McHenry County have
displayed a pattern of waste and abuse. At one point in 2018, the
county state’s attorney simultaneously was conducting criminal
investigations into Algonquin, Grafton and Nunda townships. The
investigation into Algonquin Township dimmed the state’s attorney’s
view of townships altogether, describing township government in a
report as overrun with “incompetence, guile and impropriety.”
The bill also contains a provision that would dissolve any township
road district in McHenry and Lake counties that maintain 15 miles of
road or less. Those districts would be dissolved immediately if the
bill becomes law, with no other action needed by voters or other
government layers.
The bill would bring welcome change to local taxpayers. But the
ability for taxpayers to consolidate local government on their own
shouldn’t be limited to McHenry County. All local governments – not
just those within McHenry or Lake county’s boundaries – ought to be
subject to the cost-efficiency verdicts of the taxpayers they serve.
Illinois’ nearly 7,000 layers of government – more than any other
state in the country – are often duplicative and overlapping, at
times performing redundant services and subsidizing excessive
employee compensation. The cost of maintaining those duplicative
local governments increases Illinoisans’ outsized property tax
burden.
In closing out a year that has been less than kind to McHenry County
taxpayers, lawmakers should advance HB 4637 – and deliver residents
reform they can be thankful for.
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