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 Illinois has more local units of government than any other
state in the country – so many that four separate tallies of them give four
different numbers.
The U.S. Census Bureau said Illinois has 6,918 local units of government. The
Illinois Department of Revenue counts 6,042. The Illinois comptroller found
8,529.
Now a comprehensive analysis by the Civic Federation reports the number is
8,923.
All of those governments rely on tax money to operate, so it is no surprise
Illinois shoulders the highest state and local tax burden in the nation,
according to personal finance website WalletHub. It also has the second-highest
property taxes in the nation.
Illinois has more units of government than any other state. It has more than
neighboring Indiana, Iowa and Kentucky combined, according to the U.S. Census
Bureau’s latest Census of Governments, which compares all states with the same
criteria.
Consolidation faces unique challenges in Illinois: the Civic Federation’s
analysis includes 57 pages of complex statutory rules and regulations from the
Illinois Municipal Code governing the consolidation process for every type of
government and kind of consolidation. Still, calls for consolidation are
increasing. There are two bills currently that would help the efforts, with one
specifically to consolidate school districts and the other to make it easier for
Illinoisans to consolidate other local government.
Illinois has many governments serving few people
Counties
The Civic Federation report found 50% of Illinois’ 102 counties serve fewer than
25,000 people. Fifteen of those counties serve fewer than 10,000 people.
The report also found counties extended $2 billion of the $31.8 billion of
property taxes levied statewide, which accounted for 35.3% of county budgets in
2018. While Illinois counties accounted for 6.5% of all property taxes extended
in 2018, Cook County and all of the local government units within its borders
levied $15 billion, 47.2% of all property taxes in the state.
Townships and municipalities
Townships serve as a layer of government between counties and municipalities,
which leads to a redundancy of many services critics say can be performed
without townships. Because of this service overlap and the fact that Illinois
has more governments and townships than any other state, townships have recently
become the target of consolidation efforts in Illinois.
The Civic Federation’s findings on townships and municipalities showed similar
patterns of many units of government serving few residents. Illinois has 1,426
townships spread out across 85 of its counties, with 17 counties having no
townships at all. The report found nearly half of the state’s townships, 709,
serve fewer than 1,000 people. Townships, along with their road and bridge
districts, accounted for $750.4 million of the property taxes levied in 2018,
about 2.4% of all property taxes.
Illinois has 1,298 municipalities, the most of any state in the nation. A third
of municipalities serve fewer than 2,500 people. Seventeen are coterminous,
meaning the township and municipality share the same boundaries. Municipalities
accounted for 18.9% of all property taxes extended in 2018, totaling just over
$6 billion.
School districts
Illinois has 852 public school districts, with one-third of them in Cook and the
collar counties of DuPage, Lake, Kane, McHenry and Will. Because of the large
number of districts, Illinois has one of the lowest residents-to-districts
ratios in the country, with just 14,449 residents per school district. By
contrast, Florida has an estimated 220,888 residents per school district. The
report also found that two-thirds of the school districts serve fewer than 1,000
students, and 26 districts serve fewer than 100 students.
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School districts accounted for the largest share of
property tax extensions, more than $18.5 billion, about 58.3% of all
property taxes levied in the state for 2018. School districts in
Cook County alone accounted for $8.1 billion, or 53.7%, of the
property taxes levied in the county.
State lawmakers are currently considering the Classrooms First Act,
House Bill 7, which would form a commission to recommend merging 25%
of Illinois’ district-level education administration while
preserving schools. Illinois spends 2.5 times the national average
on “general administration,” which is the cost of superintendents
and board-level bureaucracy, and nearly half of its school districts
serve only one or two schools.
Special districts
Special districts, or special purpose governments, are often created
by referendum for airports, civic centers, conservation, mosquito
abatement and other limited purposes. The Civic Federation report
found Illinois has the most special districts in the nation at
3,204. According to the report, only three other states, California,
Texas and Colorado, have more than 2,500 special districts.
Combined, all of these special districts accountedfor $4.4 billion
in property taxes for 2018, 14% of the state’s total.
Findings support increasing calls for consolidation
The Civic Federation’s study shows state and local leaders must
consider consolidation to reduce redundant, overlapping or
inefficient governments. Consolidation has been an increasingly
discussed solution to reduce Illinois government and alleviate
problems such as rising pension obligations, increasing
administrative costs and high property taxes. While there have been
efforts to improve consolidation mechanisms in recent years, calls
for changes to make the process easier continue to grow.
The current processes for consolidating units of government vary
significantly depending on the type of government and the type of
action being pursued. Found in Appendix D of the Civic Federation’s
report, there are seven different procedural structures concerning
the annexation, consolidation, or dissolution of townships, seven
for school districts, five for municipalities, and three for
counties. Even mosquito abatement districts are covered by six such
structures. These procedural rules are listed for every type of unit
of government in Illinois, making the consolidation process
unnecessarily complex and prohibitive to citizens and local
governments.
The Citizens Empowerment Act, House Bill 433, would allow
Illinoisans to petition for a ballot initiative to dissolve a unit
of local government they find is no longer necessary, streamlining
the process and placing power in the hands of local voters. This
power would apply to all local units of government. It would enable
5% of the electors from the preceding election to place a referendum
on the ballot to dissolve a unit of government. The measure would
allow local residents to work around barriers to consolidation, such
as protectionism by local officials, and pursue potential cost
savings and improved efficiency achieved by other communities
through consolidation.
HB 7, the Classrooms First Act, approaches consolidation through a
deliberate, structured examination that creates recommendations for
reducing school district administration by 25% to free $716.6
million for classrooms or as taxpayer savings. No schools would
close as part of the process. No bureaucratic consolidation would
occur without local voter approval.
Consolidation can help address Illinois’ notoriously high combined
state and local tax rate – the highest in the nation according to
some recent data – and second-highest property taxes. Along with
improving opportunities for consolidation, lawmakers must pursue
serious structural changes to Illinois such as pension reform in
order to establish a sustainable and responsible path forward for
the state.
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