Mosquito abatement districts targeted by Illinois lawmakers

Consolidating Illinois’ nearly 7,000 units of local government could help provide local property tax relief. One bill aims to consolidate mosquito abatement districts.

Illinois leads the nation with nearly 7,000 units of local government, but a new bill would swat one of the smaller units.

Mosquito abatement districts would be eradicated, with counties taking over their responsibilities under Senate Bill 3412. State Sen. Suzy Glowiak Hilton, D-Western Springs, is the chief sponsor of the bill that would bring a welcomed bit of relief to taxpayers.

Illinois currently has 21 mosquito abatement districts. This is not the first time these districts have had the option to consolidate. Former Gov. Bruce Rauner signed a bill in 2018 that allowed the boards of mosquito abatement districts to vote to consolidate themselves with another unit of local government, but the districts remain.

Consolidating units of local government helps save taxpayers money. It eliminates unnecessary administrative costs that drive up local property taxes.

Illinois had 6,918 units of local government in 2017, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. The average Illinoisan lives under six layers of local government. More units of local government mean residents pay higher property taxes, largely thanks to administrative costs.

With so many units of local government, Illinois residents pay some of the nation’s highest property taxes. Illinois homeowners pay the highest effective property tax rate among large states, as well as the second-highest property taxes in the nation.

Lawmakers need to pursue more ways to consolidate units of local government and help bring down property taxes. Many units overlap or perform the same functions. A county or municipality could easily carry out mosquito abatement districts’ duties. But they are not the only units that can be consolidated.

Many townships share overlapping boundaries with cities. Evanston saved $800,000 when Evanston Township was absorbed by the city, as they shared the same boundaries.

Potentially the greatest savings could be from consolidating Illinois’ bloated school district administration. Illinois was the only state to spend over $1 billion on school district administration in 2017. These are property taxes that are intended to help children learn, but never see the classroom because they are spent on bureaucracy. Taxpayers could save $708 million a year and student achievement could advance if Illinois consolidated school districts to the national average, a move that would leave individual schools intact and just combine their district-level administration.

Reducing Illinois’ layers of government is part of the property tax solution in Illinois, but as long as pension debt continues to eat public dollars and reduce services the property taxes will remain high. The only responsible way out of Illinois’ pension debacle and to provide true property tax relief is to structurally reform pensions to control the growth of future, unearned benefits so they are in line with what taxpayers can afford. That will take a constitutional amendment such as House Joint Resolution Constitutional Amendment 21.

But along the way, swatting a few layers of local government would help.