The Chicago Board of Education adopted a $10 billion budget last month that banks on $150 million in state funds that may never materialize. Now, school board members have placed two advisory questions on the November ballot aimed at putting pressure on city and state officials to pony up.
One question will ask voters whether they support a statewide millionaires tax. A second question about imposing financial penalties on owners of vacant lots also was approved at an Aug. 13 meeting.
Nonbinding referenda, also referred to as advisory questions, have no legal weight and the outcomes don’t change policy. But they do provide some value for voters and elected officials alike. For us regular folks, we get the opportunity to share our opinion on important issues. That sends a signal to the people calling the shots, helping inform policymaking.
But another millionaires tax referendum? We’ve been down this road before.
Springfield earlier this year considered putting a constitutional amendment for a millionaires tax on the November ballot and took a pass. There is little mystery about how Chicago would vote on a millionaires tax — it’s popular here.
But it is hardly the only issue that matters to voters. You’d be hard-pressed to figure that out based on the ballot alone, and that’s by design.
Government bodies can place authorized advisory questions on the ballot through a vote. If an ordinary person — or a group of concerned citizens — wanted the same opportunity to place a reasonable question before Chicago voters, Illinois law requires citizen petitioners to collect signatures equal to 8% of the votes cast for governor in the municipality in the preceding gubernatorial election. In Chicago, that’s well over 50,000 signatures.
We understand that some signature threshold makes sense to weed out unserious questions, but the current rules present a formidable barrier for ordinary citizens and should be re-evaluated.
Wouldn’t it be more useful to gauge the voting public’s thoughts on important issues of the day?
Here are some of the questions that we think should be put to voters:
When Chicago faces a budget deficit, should city leaders be required to identify spending reductions before proposing new taxes or fees?
Budget deficits are a perennial problem in Chicago (and Illinois), whether it’s the school district or the city itself. Budget season brings with it the well-warranted concern that more tax hikes are on the horizon. That’s not a healthy ecosystem for regular folks and businesses. We’d be interested to see where voters fall on this question, because we suspect many people would be motivated to send a message to officials that it’s time to tighten the proverbial belt instead of constantly asking taxpayers for more.
Should Chicago be required to seek voter approval before increasing its property-tax levy above the rate of inflation?
Just like budget season, property tax season comes with a near-guarantee that parts of the city will see their bills go up. Over the past three decades, total property tax levies in Cook County rose at roughly twice the pace of inflation and considerably more than average wages, according to research released in March by Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas. Ouch.
Should Chicago reduce taxes, fees and regulatory barriers to encourage construction of more housing and help address the city’s housing affordability problem?
Buyers and renters alike are struggling with housing costs, while Chicago isn’t building enough new homes to meet demand. If we need more housing, voters should be able to offer guidance on solutions that would encourage shovels in the ground.
Should Chicago Public Schools close or consolidate severely underenrolled schools and redirect the savings toward students in remaining schools?
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Now here is a question whose answer we’d genuinely like to know. Chicago Public Schools has about 50 schools deemed “severely underutilized,” meaning student enrollment is at 33% of capacity or less. That carries significant challenges not only for student well-being but also significant costs. The Civic Federation reported that the average per-student operating cost among severely underutilized high schools is nearly $36,000 annually, $12,338 more than is spent on average at efficient schools.
Should the state of Illinois be allowed to impose new mandates on Chicago without providing the money necessary to pay for them?
Unfunded mandates aggravate officials in nearly every city and village across the state. Especially in Chicago, where the city last year had to swallow a state pension-sweetener law that added more than $11 billion to the city’s preexisting mountain of pension liabilities. If Chicago school board members really want to send a message to Springfield, this is a good one to tackle.
We aren’t suggesting we know how Chicagoans would answer all of these questions. That’s precisely the point, and exactly why advisory questions exist in the first place. This tool should be used to tell politicians something they didn’t already know, not used as a prop to rally support for something they’ve already decided.
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