Illinois cities should learn from Rockford when it comes to spending
Since 2017, Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara has cut the property tax rate to 1.93% by cutting costs and spending smarter – a playbook other Illinois cities should copy.
Illinois homeowners are bracing for another year of high property taxes. Families will pay more than double the national average and face the second-highest rates in the nation, behind only New Jersey.
While some leaders such as Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson seek to solve their financial problems by further hiking those property taxes, other cities are taking steps to move in the other direction. In Rockford, which had a tax rate of 3.31% in 2017, Mayor Tom McNamara has reduced the rate to roughly 1.93%. This means as property values have gone up, the tax levy and property tax bills have remained somewhat stagnant.
Two simple strategies have empowered Rockford to avoid tax hikes: eliminating unnecessary costs and only spending on what’s important. These approaches could reverse the rising tax trend in other cities across the state.
Rockford takes financial discipline seriously
Rockford has sought to tighten their spending each budget cycle to maintain their total property tax levy and reduce the rate.
The mayor’s office cut back on anything piling on unnecessary expenses such as printing costs, centralizing printers and defaulting them to black and white. The city also re-bid routine contracts and merged back-office tasks.
The city even unlocked a new revenue stream by providing value to surrounding areas. The city used to send its fire trucks out for repair. After hiring full-time staff to fix its trucks, Rockford Fire now repairs other departments’ ladder trucks and engines, generating about $120,000 a year in profit.
Rockford is proof for other cities that small, permanent savings and creative innovations rather than tax hikes can compound over time. Other municipalities could start with a zero-based review of non-core expenses like printing, vehicles and even copier toner, banking every dollar against future levy reductions. This can serve as a framework for further spending restraint.
Eliminating unnecessary expenses allows Rockford to spend on what’s actually valued
Rockford has redirected resources to an issue that matters a great deal to residents: reducing crime. Its efforts have shown great success, cutting violent-crime incidents to 1,626 from 2,331, a 30% reduction since 2021. Homicides also decreased by 10% in just the past year.
The city layered ShotSpotter gun-shot detection over an expanding network of license-plate readers which Mayor McNamara argues has been “a force multiplier for our police.” The city has rolled out additional prevention and intervention programs to support this initiative and deliver results that complement police enforcement.
More cities in Illinois should seek to be like Rockford: employing fiscal discipline to cut spending where it isn’t necessary, creating valuable revenue streams that don’t burden residents and spending prudently on areas that will create big improvements in the community.
This approach has benefits beyond preventing a higher tax burden on residents. It sends each dollar toward real change in the community. Rockford’s drop in violent crime means safer neighborhoods, which attracts more people to stay in the city or join the tax base and allows levies to stay flat. Lower taxes and prudent spending feed one another to create a virtuous cycle.