Education Matters US

The title of this post comes from the sign below. It is being displayed on a Grayslake business and is very timely.

There are many people complaining about how much there assessments have risen this year. They know this means their taxes will go up in the spring. I have heard many times that Lake County has the highest property taxes around. Well, that is true and it was recently confirmed by Forbes magazine in a report showing Lake County as having the highest property taxes in the Midwest.

Last week I attended the Citizens Action Project meeting help in Prairie Crossing. The meeting did not meet my expectations. The presentations on how to appeal your assessments were weakly presented. You can view their outline of the appeal process here or watch the video of the presentation. They were able to successfully highlight how different assessors do their jobs. This leads to multiple questions:

• Why do we have 18 elected township assessors?
• Why do we have townships at all?
• Why are there so many taxing bodies in Lake County and Illinois?
• Why do we need 892 school districts?

The group is trying to disconnect the assessment process from the tax process. This does nothing but direct blame at the wrong people. The Assessors DO NOT raise your taxes. They only raise your assessment. The taxing bodies raise your taxes. They get an increase each and every year. In fact if the assessor raises your assessment, but the taxing body does not increase their levy, your taxes would not increase. In fact, they may decline. You can view an explanation of how this works at the County Assessor website.

This leads to how the group really missed a great opportunity to tell the attendees why their taxes are going up so much. Your taxes are increasing so much because the taxing bodies are leving more and more each year. If you want your taxes to quit going up go to your levy hearings and speak out at their meetings and levy hearings. All taxing bodies in Lake County are having those hearings this month so they can give them to the County Tax Extension Office this month. Some bodies have already held their meetings.

Start by looking at your tax bill. Who gets the largest percentage of you tax money? This will be your local school districts. In Grayslake, the Levy Hearing for District 46 schools will be held at 7:30 pm on December 10th at Prairieview. District 127 does not have their agenda up, but their levy hearing will be December 13th, unless they call a special meeting for the day after Christmas like they did last year.