Get the latest news from around Illinois.
Champaign News-Gazette: Who will pay and how much?
“Don’t tax you. Don’t tax me. Tax the guy behind the tree.”
That bit of doggerel is popularly attributed to late Louisiana U.S. Sen. Russell Long, the powerful chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
It accurately sums up popular attitudes among many taxpayers who feel they pay too much in taxes, while everyone else pays too little. It also explains why elected officials and candidates of all persuasions and parties are generally loath to talk about raising taxes in an election year.
State Journal-Register: Government consolidation efforts gain traction in General Assembly
Before his election to the Illinois House in 2012, state Rep. Sam Yingling was the supervisor of his local township in central Lake County, a job with few responsibilities beyond presiding over monthly meetings and administering town funds.
Yingling decided to run for that office after an informal fact-finding investigation on behalf of his fellow business owners, who were fed up with the area’s high property taxes. Yingling found that the township represented a “bastion of waste,” one of many units of local government that need not exist.
Chicago Sun-Times: Most folks don’t enjoy automatic pay hikes — and neither should legislators
When Illinois legislators want to give themselves raises, they should have the guts to take a vote on that every single time.
Back in the 1989-90 legislative session, lawmakers passed a bill to give themselves automatic annual cost-of-living raises, year in and year out. That way, they got the pay boost each year without having to vote for it each time.
Belleville News-Democrat: Want to kill gerrymandering in Illinois? Get on your state lawmakers now.
Politicians in Springfield should not get to decide how much weight your vote carries. But they do, so if you want a better version of democracy you need to tell Illinois state politicians to get behind the Fair Maps Amendment. And they need to do it by a May 4 deadline so you can vote on it in November.
The urgency is because the Nov. 6 election is the last chance we’ll have to end gerrymandering in Illinois before the 2020 U.S. Census. That population count will set the Illinois state legislative and congressional district map-making process in motion.
Daily Herald: How someone can pay your taxes, then take your property
The owners of an Elk Grove Village strip club, a shuttered Schaumburg seafood restaurant and a Rolling Meadows brunch spot are among nearly 39,000 in Cook County at risk of losing the deeds to their businesses, homes or vacant land because of unpaid property taxes.
“We didn’t make enough money last year to pay our taxes,” said Anna Stachura, who owns and operates the Egg’lectic Cafe at 2905 Algonquin Road in Rolling Meadows. “The last two years have been really slow.”
Chicago Tribune: Chicago sues 2 south suburban towns, claiming they diverted millions designated to pay past due water bills
Two south suburbs that for years have owed millions in past due water bills to Chicago have been improperly diverting money designated to pay those debts in favor of funding other operations, court filings allege.
The City of Chicago filed separate suits last month against the cash-strapped communities of Dolton and Robbins, alleging the towns had violated past contracts, repayment agreements and the law by making unauthorized transfers of millions of dollars from water fund accounts into their general funds.
Daily Herald: Bensenville Dist. 2 board to approve teacher contract Wednesday
Bensenville Elementary District 2 teachers have approved a new five-year contract and the proposal now heads to the school board.
Board members have called a special meeting for 5 p.m. Wednesday at W.A. Johnson School to vote on the pact.
Belleville News-Democrat: There’s another push to split up SIUE and SIUC. Could it really happen this time?
A renewed push to separate the Southern Illinois University campuses is at least a way to create leverage for the Edwardsville campus, according to a longtime Illinois political observer.
A group of metro-east legislators is now asking to sever the campuses and create two universities with their own boards. Their proposal comes after officials opted against shifting state money from the Carbondale campus to SIUE next year because of enrollment gains.