Du Page County Board Chairman Aldo Botti hailed Saturday an agreement between Gov. Jim Edgar and Democratic legislative leaders to put a lid on county property-tax increases, saying it represents the start of a
”revolution in taxes.”
”The trend is there. The momentum is there. I think this will have a tremendous psychological effect on taxpayers,” said Botti, reached in Salt Lake City where he was attending the National Association of Counties convention.
”Taxpayers can say now, `They`re listening to us.` Now it`s time for municipalities to do something,” said Botti, a Republican who rode a wave of anti-tax sentiment into office in last year`s county elections.
Until Lake County nudged it into second place this year, Du Page had held the dubious honor of having the highest per person property-tax burden of Illinois` 102 counties.
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Botti said the agreement to cap property tax increases, although not as broad as the governor had sought, still represents a significant victory for the freshman GOP governor.
”It`s better than nothing,” he said. ”I give him an A for accomplishment. The governor is doing what he promised to do.”
The agreement came Saturday morning, when House Speaker Michael Madigan
(D-Chicago) announced that he had accepted a GOP plan to cap increases in annual property-tax collections to no more than 5 percent annually in the collar counties.
Suburban Cook County will not be covered by a tax cap, although the plan does include a one-time freeze on assessments there. Edgar had sought a statewide property-tax cap.
Edgar and Du Page County legislators, including Senate Republican Leader James ”Pate” Philip of Wood Dale and House Republican Leader Lee Daniels of Elmhurst, had demanded that a property-tax cap be part of any final agreement on a new state budget.
But Saturday some of their constituents reacted to news of the property-tax relief agreement with skepticism.
”This is politics at its finest: Chicago-Springfield politics,” Mike Gresk, 41, said with a laugh as a discussion of the Edgar deal diverted his attention momentarily from Little League baseball at North Side Park in Wheaton.
As vice president of the Wheaton Park District Board, Gresk added,
”Honestly, I`m not in favor of caps as a commissioner. If you want to reform taxes, do it statewide . . . not in my back yard. We keep our increases at a bare minimum.”
Mike Youngberg, 32, of Lombard said he will remain skeptical ”until I see what it does for me.”
Officials in communities that straddle the Du Page and Cook County border were particularly perplexed because the two counties operate under a different set of rules under the legislative accord.
”It costs just as much to send the fire truck into the collar county side of the community as it does to send it to the Cook County side,” said Charles Willis, manager in Elk Grove Village, which lies mostly in Cook County but spills over into Du Page with 400 acres of industrial property.
”The measure, on its face, is more confusing than beneficial to anyone, including the homeowner,” Willis said.
For his part, Botti denied that he backed off Friday in his support of the Edgar-initiated property-tax cap.
”I was asked if (the governor) did not go through with the cap, would I be upset. And I said no. I said that if he were to back off, I`d have no hard feelings,” Botti said.
”I never backed off at all,” Botti insisted.
Du Page County Board members heaped praise on Edgar and Republican leaders Philip and Daniels for having stuck with their demands for property-tax relief. The issue of property-tax caps has been a major stumbling block in the legislature`s two-week-long budget impasse.
”Gov. Edgar made it possible to give the government back to the people,” Edward Merkel, Du Page County Board member from Elmhurst, said of the news.
He was referring to the fact that local government could increase property taxes beyond the 5 percent cap but only by referendum. Moreover, the rule would apply equally to communities with and without home rule.
The cap, however, was met with less enthusiasm from some mayors, who will be limited in the amount of revenue they can generate because of the limits.
”We didn`t think it was the solution for responsible communities, but the governor did what he had to do relative to his campaign promises,” said Wheaton Mayor Gwendolyn S. Henry.
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The problem is the cap, though politically attractive, also does not address problems of school funding, which Henry said is what sends property taxes skyrocketing in counties such as Du Page in the first place.