4 Illinois counties to vote on an extra sales tax for schools

Property taxes haven’t declined when the extra County School Facility Occupation Tax was added.

Voters in Lake, Adams, Crawford and Tazewell counties will decide whether their counties adopt a state-permitted additional sales tax for specific school purposes.

The County School Facility Occupation Tax, also known as CSFT, can be up to 1%, levied in quarter-percentage-point increments.

Schools can use the money for fund improvements in buildings and facilities and for mental health professionals and school resource officers. The tax cannot be used for teachers’ salaries or other operating costs. Money is distributed based on a district’s share of the public school students in the county.

If the money is used to pay off facility-related debt, a corresponding reduction in the property tax levy is required.

A 2007 law authorizes all counties except Cook to impose the tax with voter approval. So far 58 of the 101 eligible counties have adopted it.

The ballot language on ballots for the Nov 3 election is similar in the four counties, where the result is binding. In Lake County, the question reads: Shall a retailers’ occupation tax and a service occupation tax (commonly referred to as a sales tax) be imposed in The County of Lake, Illinois, at a rate of 1% to be used exclusively for school facility purposes, school resource officers, and mental health professionals?

In Lake County, adopting the tax would increase the sales tax rate to as high as 10.25%, depending on the municipality. Some examples:

• Lake County unincorporated areas: up from 7.25% to 8.25%
• Lake Forest, Lake Zurich, Lake Bluff, Round Lake, Lincolnshire, Buffalo Grove, Deerfield, Riverwoods: up from 8.25% to 9.25%
• Waukegan, Gurnee, Fox Lake Business Districts, Libertyville: up from 8.75% to 9.75%
• Highwood, Antioch business districts, Lake Villa business district, Long Grove business district: 9.25% to 10.25%

In Tazewell County, the sales tax rate would rise to 10.5% in Pekin and East Peoria.

In Adams County, the additional 1% sales tax would make the highest rate 10% in Quincy.

In Crawford County, the sales tax rate would increase to 7.25% countywide.

Counties have said that because school building improvements are primarily funded by property taxes, the additional revenues from the CSFT can lead to offsetting property taxes for residents.

However, an analysis of property taxes levied by Illinois K-12 school districts in recent years has shown that on average in counties that have adopted the extra tax, there is no corresponding property tax decrease or reduction in the rate at which school district property taxes have grown.

In fact, from 2022 to 2025, the median growth rate of property taxes levied by the school districts in counties that had adopted the tax was slightly higher — 0.24 of a percentage point — than in counties that did not adopt the tax, 19.81% vs. 19.57%.