Real property tax relief must come from Springfield – Opinion – Crain’s

The tax hikes will devastate Cook County businesses, which already stagger under unsustainable property tax loads. Owners of apartments and office buildings will pass along at least some of the rising tax tab to tenants through rent hikes, driving the steep costs of living and doing business here even higher. Illinois policymakers continue to ignore the long-term economic effects of excessive property taxes. A legislative task force appointed late last year to study alternative funding sources for local government services accomplished nothing, lending credence to skepticism that the group was mere window-dressing for Pritzker's graduated income tax proposal.
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Freddy
3 years ago

Check out. http://www.wrex.com- click NEWS-scroll down to 13 investigates and then scroll down to 13 investigates RPS205. It’s about how the how the school district promotes students who are no where ready under “social promotion”. Teachers did not want to be interviewed due to possible backlash. This is not the teachers fault but administrative policy. This is probably going on statewide especially in Chicago.

Freddy
3 years ago

I would like to interject this into the conversation. We were talking about qualifications. Due to the Covid lock down parents and many single parents all over the country were thrust into the roll of being teachers. How many of them have degrees or certification to teach. Not many. Are these students now behind where they should of been by now? Those who home schooled from the getgo had no problems. We found out the hard way on how ill-prepared the schools are for home learning even with there massive budgets. Many lack basic internet or having inferior computers so… Read more »

James
3 years ago
Reply to  Freddy

This whole public attitude about the worth or worthlessness of home schooling amuses me more then a little. People on this website and in society general often complain about teachers and the low level of accomplishment that they giving school systems for the massive investments by taxpayers into it. Yet, for all that moaning and groaning when being somewhat foreced by “home schooling” to teach their children they do even more moaning and groaning, feeling both inadequate and overwhelmed by that double-duty effort on their part. Many can’t wait for public schools to reopen. Its the day-care side of public… Read more »

Freddy
3 years ago
Reply to  James

You are right about the day care side of public education but also it is where kids get many of their meals. More than likely the kids are teaching the parents at home. Common Core is like hieroglyphics to many parents. I still commend all those who gave up a career to home school and they get little recognition for their labors. My wife and I are fortunate that we could afford private school for K-8 and public for high school(he did get a good education and was senior class president to boot) but being members of the church reduced… Read more »

debtsor
3 years ago
Reply to  Freddy

“Common Core is like hieroglyphics to many parents.”

It’s actual gobblity gook with heaping helpings of nonsense stirred in. It actualy makes kids dumber as reflected by test scores from before and after it’s implementation. But the education industrial complex has so much invested in Common Core, they believe it’s better to double down on stupid, and mix in some LGBTQ+ ‘education’ than actually teach the three RRR’s. I say leave the moralizing to parents at home.

Freddy
3 years ago

We need a genuine taxpayer property tax revolt. WE should determine what the services we get should cost not the other way around. As an example we should tell the school district. This is what we can afford to educate our children and have a figure like $7,000 per pupil from all sources. If not we will find people who will. Competitive bids to educate. Instead all deals are made behind closed doors with no one in the public knowing any details until ratified then they tell us “This is what you owe us. After all who owns the public… Read more »

James
3 years ago
Reply to  Freddy

Your idea might seem good on the surface, but do you really think its wise to go for lowest-bidder services in any professional area? Would you to that for a cancer doctor, for example? Would you do it for a trial lawyer? Doing it for education has no obvious immediate dire consequences of that sort, but you’re definitely striving to lower the cost at the expense of those who are willing to do those services. If you think teachers are the dregs of society now I can’t wait to see who will do it as a career under your plan.… Read more »

nixit
3 years ago
Reply to  James

Then those teachers will choose careers more fitting their skill set such as scientists, doctors, engineers, software designers, wealth managers, CEOs, etc. What’s wrong with that? Imagine that brain power unleashed into the job market! What’s preventing them from choosing any one of those careers now? What makes someone choose 5th grade teacher over neurologist?

James
3 years ago
Reply to  nixit

Irrelevant

nixit
3 years ago
Reply to  James

Quite relevant. You’re implying these smart people won’t go into teaching. They have to go somewhere. Where are they going?

James
3 years ago
Reply to  nixit

They go various ways in life as do all all kinds of other people. That’s not the substance of my comment, an attempt to describe what must happen to bring education down and the likelly consequences of doing it.

debtsor
3 years ago
Reply to  James

Well, considering the awful track record of CPS, and that most kids can’t read at grade level, it sounds like the profession ISN’T attracting the best and the brightest. It sounds like it attracts the lazy, pilferers and pension looters. Let’s fire them all and start from scratch. It can’t get any worse that it is already.

James
3 years ago
Reply to  debtsor

Well, I agree that the results are extremely bad in an academic sense as well as a financial sense in terms of meeting the expectations of society at large. On a more local level its likely due to a combination of factors, some of which you’ve addressed. But, you’ve failed to address something even more important–the expecations of the parents. They are the ones who set expectations levels at even a pre-school age as to what is expected at home in the way of reaonable, polite and productive behaviors. Absent those three character traits schools can almost literally do nothing… Read more »

Freddy
3 years ago
Reply to  James

I would not go with the lowest bidder but teachers who are most qualified. Here in Rockford there are many private schools with very qualified teachers but much less administrative bloat and tuition is around 7K vs 14-15K for public. Keith school tuition is close to $14K but pupil to teacher ratio is about 7 to 1 and 99% can go to almost any college they choose. Immanuel Lutheran in Belvidere tuition is closer to 6K or lower if you become a church member. These teachers love what they are doing and can at any time switch over to public… Read more »

James
3 years ago
Reply to  Freddy

Undoubtedly there are places and circumstances where such schools work wonderfully well. But the model you’ve proposed for funding is flawed if you think it will result in hiring massive numbers of highly qualified staff all over this state and nationwide as well. There are not that many selfless, altruistic and highly skilled people to do it. Most applicants are real people warts and all—rather than wished-for hypothetical ones—who seek what’s best for their own lives as their highest priority even if they do have high degrees of such traits as I’ve mentioned.

Freddy
3 years ago
Reply to  James

It can work. Per pupil expenditure in Florida is $8,920. In Illinois $14,180. So to educate 2M students here would cost $17.8 Bil at $8,920/student. That’s over $10Bil in savings for all parties. The difference is that Florida has unit districts comprised of 40K students each or about 65 total districts. Here we have supers for schools with 100 students, Rondout Dist 72 has 141 students plus a super and even a psychologist or over $30K per student. That $8,920 is very close to private schools in Rockford. $10Bil in savings just by consolidating schools. We have 868 districts to… Read more »

Jamea
3 years ago
Reply to  Freddy

Sure, it CAN work, but various attitudes, societal norms and attitudes have to allow that to happen in concert or it simply won’t. First, as you said, the public has to give up local control to the concept of their schools being run by fewer districts. IL talks the talk but never walks the walk in that component and has done that since the idea was first proposed many decades ago. So, we continue having higher admin costs to retain local control. Secondly, the voters have to implicitly agree that staff costs MUST come down, meaning as teacher attrition occurs… Read more »

nixit
3 years ago
Reply to  Jamea

Illinois has about the same avg school district enrollment as Minnesota and Wisconsin, but those two states’ residents spend thousands less per pupil on education. It can be done.

Last edited 3 years ago by nixit
James
3 years ago
Reply to  nixit

Sure, it CAN be done in specific places and for reaons not common elsewhere. I’m not saying cheaper ways of funding education can’t be done at all, but I am saying there are consequences of everything done politically in our society. What seems good on the surface for one place might work elsewhere, but it also might not work well elsewhere due to different circumstances there. Generally speaking, if you offer less in terms of resources and employee pay than your neighboring communities and you’ll get the negative sides of doing so as older employees leave and newer ones are… Read more »

Lyn P
3 years ago
Reply to  Freddy

Perhaps start with private bidding out of the insane administrative costs and bureaucratic running of the whole mess, particularly CPS and next largest districts. No doubt the admin side is a major money pit and that’s even before getting into the corruption of it all. And most definitely a completely third party oversight/audit board.

nixit
3 years ago

So now we’re back to the 800-member Property Tax Force that took a year to tell us what we already know.

JB’s crew has already spent the extra $3 billion from his Fair Tax multiple times over. It’ll be interesting to see how they spin this as a means to reduce property taxes while also saying the rates won’t change.

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“We are not in good shape” Wirepoints’ Ted Dabrowski told ABC 20 Champaign during a segment on Illinois’ latest population losses. Illinois was one of just three states to shrink in the 2010-2020 period and has lost another 300,000 people since then. Ted says things need to change. “It’s too expensive to live here, there aren’t enough good jobs and nobody trusts the government anymore. There’s just other places to go where you can be more satisfied.”

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