After one term, state Rep. Rick Ryan faces a reelection challenge in the 36th District from former Robbins police Chief David Sheppard.
Both promise to be tough on crime and prioritize affordability in the southwest suburban district but propose different strategies.
Ryan, of Evergreen Park, was elected two years ago, after gaining the endorsement of longtime Rep. Kelly Burke, who is also mayor of Evergreen Park. Ryan says he’s worked with other moderate Democrats to block tax hikes.
“There’s about four or five tax proposals that looked like they were going to go through,” Ryan said about the most recent budget. “We banded together to say that we’re just not going to vote for it, and they then reshaped the budget to (prevent) those from coming down to the consumers.”
Ryan said he would continue to push for property tax reform, after supporting four bills that aimed to reduce the tax burden on homeowners but failed to make it to a vote.
“As I grow in this job, I’m going to be a little more forceful with getting this to the forefront,” Ryan said. “Maybe work with some of the legislators that had similar ideas and demand that we do something this session coming up to get this relief for our taxpayers.”
Ryan aims to reintroduce his own property tax plan, which prevents property assessments from increasing by more than the rate of inflation. He believes by tying assessments to inflation, tax increases match rising costs within municipalities and school districts.
“The cost of doing business for a school is going to go up the same amount of money over time, so it should balance out for them,” Ryan said. “I’ve talked to some superintendents about it, and they don’t disagree.”
Despite the Cook County assessor’s office arguing the bill is unconstitutional, Ryan said he will bring it back next session.
“My district is a lot more of people wanting a lot of things to stay the same because they live in a wonderful area, and I agree with them,” Ryan said. “But this is the one issue that could drive people out of their homes, and that’s not looked fondly on in my area and I’m sure many others.”
Republican Sheppard, who is on the Evergreen Park Elementary District 124 board, says he supports a 3% cap on property assessments. He is also pushing for better funding of public schools as a longer-term solution.
“This is the way we lower property taxes — we freeze it, and then we stop asking for so much,” Sheppard said.
Sheppard said he would look for spending inefficiencies in the state budget. Without providing specifics, he proposed combining or cutting underused programs to shift more funding toward education.
“Wasteful spending is what’s holding us back in Illinois,” Sheppard said. “If we can cap that and redirect some of that money to our children and our children’s futures, that will help our parents and our homeowners at the same time.”
Illinois spends about $45 billion overall on public elementary and high schools, with property taxes covering about 64%, state funding handling less than a quarter and federal sources responsible for 12%, the Tribune reported.
Raising state school funding enough to meaningfully cut property taxes would be virtually impossible without a major state tax increase, the Tribune reported. The state’s current Evidence-Based Funding Formula for schools falls billions of dollars short of its own adequacy goals.
Sheppard is a parent to five children, including a nonverbal 13-year-old with autism, and said he prides himself on being an advocate for parental control in schools and voice for children with disabilities.
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“Children belong to their parents, and the parents have the final say,” Sheppard said. “Not the government, not the elected boards, and all those other individuals that believe that they know best for someone else’s children.”
He said legislation signed into law last year requiring that schools provide free, optional mental health screenings serves as an example of government overreach.
Sheppard said schools should have to pitch child screenings to parents, rather than requiring that parents opt out of the program. Otherwise, “things might slip through the cracks, and before you know it, the children have been enrolled in something that (parents) don’t approve of,” he said.
The Evergreen Park resident grew up in Chicago public housing and said he lost friends to incarceration, overdoses and gun violence as drugs flooded into the Englewood neighborhood. As he grew older, moved out of the area and got a job with the Cook County sheriff’s office, where he stayed for 26 years and worked as a patrol officer, sergeant and a criminal investigator.
Sheppard worked as a detective for Merrionette Park before serving as the Robbins police chief for 17 months. Mayor Darren Bryant fired Sheppard in April 2023, with Sheppard alleging in a wrongful termination and whistleblower lawsuit that Bryant interfered with police work including storing of evidence, hiring of officers and handling investigations.
“As a police chief, you have to make a decision, whether you are going to go with the flow of something or you’re going to stand up for what your oath of office is and for your integrity,” he said.
Ryan, an attorney, graduated from DePaul and earned a law degree from John Marshall Law School in Chicago. His law office is based in Oak Lawn, and he was an officer of the Southwest Bar Association. He said he volunteered in his community throughout 30 years in Evergreen Park, including as president of the village’s baseball league and the booster club.
“I think I’ve done a good job, and I earned the right to come back and work for our neighborhoods again,” Ryan said. “And I’d like to do it for as long as they’ll let me.”
He said he’s spent much of his time of late educating himself on the benefits and risks of data center development.
Ryan didn’t expect to see data center proposals within his district anytime soon due to a lack of vacant land, but he hoped state leaders wouldn’t back away from the potential economic gains.
“This is something that draws in a lot of jobs, this is something that is kind of the future,” Ryan said. “And I’d hate to see Illinois just let it go to Indiana and Iowa and Wisconsin.”
State campaign finance disclosure reports show Sheppard’s campaign without contributions or expenses during the July-September quarter. At the end of September, the campaign had just under $1,100 available to spend.
Ryan’s committee report for the July-September quarter was not available as of Thursday. The campaign lacked expenses and receipts during the April-June period but had about $96,600 available to spend at the end of June.
Early voting began Wednesday in suburban Cook County. Polls will be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Election Day. Anyone in line by 7 p.m. will be allowed to vote.