The bipartisan House legislative task force on overlapping taxing districts spent more than an hour of its first meeting last week discussing why homeowners on the Cook County side of taxing districts pay less than their collar county counterparts.
The answer, said Steger resident John Cashman, is common-sense politics: In Cook County, “People vote, businesses don’t.” Thus, Cook County’s multilevel taxing system subsidizes homeowners’ property taxes, while residential property elsewhere in the state is taxed at the same rate as commercial and industrial property.
Cashman joined forces with longtime tax activist Lawrence “Buster” Kreidler a year ago to form the Steger Will Action Taxforce. The group attracted the attention of freshman state Rep. George Scully (D-Flossmoor), who sponsored the House resolution creating the tax task force.
Kreidler, a Steger resident, along with homeowners from Barrington, Park Forest and Tinley Park, addressed the first meeting of the task force, discussing the problems in their communities. Crete Township assessor Ron Koelling also testified during the three-hour meeting at the Illinois State Building.
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Scully said the task force will have to proceed carefully before it dissolves Dec. 31, because of differing problems among the collar-county communities.
The legislative task force on overlapping taxing districts is scheduled to meet Oct. 23 in Barrington and about three weeks later in Steger.