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PROPERTY TAXES
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Coroner: Missing man, 69, drowned By KATIE DAHLSTROM
kdahlstrom@shawmedia.com McHENRY – The McHenry-area man whose body was found Tuesday in the Fox River after an eight-hour missing person search drowned, according to the McHenry County coroner. There was no evidence of trauma or injury associated with foul play in the death of 69-year-old Roger T. Little, whose death is being investigated by the coroner’s office, Coroner Anne Majewski said in a news release. Little, who was mentally impaired after a traumatic brain injury, was reported missing at 8:30 p.m. Monday by his brother. He was last seen at 3 p.m. Monday when a bus from the Pioneer Center for Human Services dropped him off at the home he shares with his brother and sister-in-law in the 2800 block of North Villa Lane, McHenry County Sheriff’s Deputy Aimee Knop said Wednesday. The report sparked a four-hour search for him in the neighborhood and in the Fox River, which runs along the backyard of
See CORONER, page A2
Matthew Apgar – mapgar@shawmedia.com
Patricia DiMaio packs up her belongings Tuesday inside her home in Woodstock. DiMaio is tired of the high taxes and can’t wait to leave the county.
ABOUT THIS SERIES For Illinoisans, property taxes are a sore spot. Illinois has the second-highest property taxes in the nation, and McHenry County is in the top 10 for highest property taxes in the state. Illinois also ranks first in the country with nearly 7,000 taxing districts, which makes examining one’s tax bill a confusing exercise. While taxpayers are annoyed by the price tag, property taxes also are a primary source of revenue for local taxing bodies. This series examines some of the issues in Illinois for residents and taxing bodies.
THE SERIES DAY-BY-DAY TODAY High property taxes in Illinois and McHenry County have residents fleeing for other states. For residents paying close to $10,000 in taxes alone, many have decided enough is enough. Lowering property taxes is among the items on Gov. Bruce Rauner’s “Turnaround Agenda.”
FRIDAY The bulk of property taxes in Illinois, around 62 percent, goes to public schools. How much individual residents pay varies from school district to school district. What are among the reasons some residents pay more than others? One effort to ease property taxes has been an attempt to consolidate townships, which hasn’t gotten much traction from the McHenry County Board. We’ll take a look at the township portion of property taxes.
SATURDAY Some taxing bodies are maxed out on what they’re allowed to tax, which they say has been difficult as property value has declined. In 2014, 34 of McHenry County’s 117 taxing bodies reached the maximum tax rate in one or more of their funds.
SUNDAY A few taxing bodies have been building huge cash reserves, which is frustrating for taxpayers who still are paying high tax rates. Some are saving for major projects they have planned. At least one school district is making some efforts to change the trend of keeping a large surplus.
WHERE DO Property taxes driving TAX BILL$ many out of county COME FROM?
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Voice your opinion
By KEVIN P. CRAVER kcraver@shawmedia.com Property taxes drove Cook County Sheriff’s Deputy Brian Driscoll out of McHenry County, and will drive him out of Illinois altogether and into Texas when he retires at the end of the year. The property tax bill on his home in Lake in the Hills was $8,000 when he sold it – today the bill is now more than $10,000. Driscoll moved to a townhome in Lakewood, but moved again when his property tax bill hit $4,400. Driscoll doesn’t need official numbers to tell him he is far from alone in his decision to leave. “When I went to the [police] pension board, I ran into at least six other people who are leaving the state. They just can’t put up with the taxes, the cost of living and the mismanagement,” Driscoll said – and Illinois does not tax pensions and retirement income. Brian Smith of Huntley also is counting down the days, albeit more of them, before he leaves McHenry County for Texas. Smith, a sales manager, pays $8,000 a year in property taxes for a 3,400-squarefoot home on a quarter acre. The assessment letter he got in November from Grafton Township in-
Assessments
Township and county assessors set and review the assessed values of individual homes, businesses and other properties. These numbers can take a while to finalize, so in the meantime ...
By how much has your property tax bill increased since you bought your home? Vote online at NWHerald.com. creased his property’s value by 22 percent. Once his son graduates next spring from Marian Central Catholic High School, the family is leaving the state. “They’re saying my house is worth $309,000, and at least a third of our subdivision has recently turned over with short sales and foreclosures. If the township would like to buy my house for $309,000, I’d gladly sell it to them today,” Smith said. Driscoll’s and Smith’s stories are only two of many. From official government analyses to annual reports of truck rentals by moving companies, Illinois consistently is at or near the top for people leaving for other states, and taking their incomes, their intellectual capital and their businesses with them. While winter weather may be an easy scapegoat, a study earlier this year revealed most people leaving Illinois are settling in neighboring states.
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Levies
Each taxing entity – school districts, park districts, townships, municipalities, the county, sanitary districts – prepares and passes property tax levies. These levies are requests for a certain amount of money they hope to collect in taxes the next year. Oftentimes, these requests are "ballooned" to ensure taxing bodies get all the increase they're entitled to under state law.
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Calculating tax rates
Those requests go to the county clerk who figures out how much those taxing entities actually get by taking the finalized assessed property values and the amount of money the taxing entities are requesting and then applying two caps. The first cap is called a statutory maximum tax rate. Some entities have limits on what the tax rate can be. As property values plummeted across the state, more than a quarter of the 117 taxing bodies in McHenry County saw at least one of their funds hit these maximum rates. This phenomenon is explored in Saturday's story. The second tax cap is called PTELL, and it limits how much each taxing entity – home-rule municipalities such as Crystal Lake and McHenry are exempt – can increase its levy by each year to the rate of inflation plus any new growth in its boundaries. New growth can be an addition, a deck or a finished basement. A few funds, mostly to cover bond payments, are not capped by PTELL.
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Officials say gunmen ‘came prepared’ to kill One suspect identified in deadly California rampage The ASSOCIATED PRESS SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. – At least two heavily armed attackers opened fire on a banquet at a social services center for the disabled Wednesday, killing 14 people and seriously wounding more than a dozen others in a precision assault that looked “as if they were on a mission,” authorities said. About four hours later, police hunting for the killers riddled a black SUV with gunfire in a shootout 2 miles from the late-morning carnage, and a man and woman with assault rifles, handguns and “assault-style clothing” were killed, San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said. A third person who was spotted running near the gunbattle was detained, but Burguan said it was unclear if that person had
See SHOOTING, page A7
Tax bill
The end product of this process is a tax rate for each taxing body that can be applied to the now-finalized assessed value of each property in the county to put together a tax bill.
See TAXES, page A4
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CL South’s Caitlin Bruzzini named Northwest Herald runner of the year / C1-2
Lake in the Hills man faces prison after being found guilty of 5th DUI / A3
Find out things to do in and around McHenry County / Inside
AP photo
Two women embrace at a community center where family members gathered to pick up survivors after a shooting rampage Wednesday killed multiple people and wounded others at a social services center in San Bernardino, Calif.
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