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School Districts Begin to get the Message and Freeze Property Taxes

December 21, 2012 By 4 Comments

After several years of research and debating how taxing bodies feel it is their right of “tradition” to raise your property taxes every year, there is a shift starting to take place.  Many Villages and Townships have been freezing and in some cases lowering their levies (taxes) for the past several years.  This week, several school districts have broken the ice as well.

  • Grayslake District 46 – Froze their levy – Dec 19th on a 5-2 vote
  • Nippersink District 2 – Froze their levy – Dec 18th unanimously
  • Richmond/Burton District 157 – increase their Ed fund levy, but then abated the same amount in bonds effectively no raising taxes – Dec 19th unamimously
  • Stevenson High School District 125 has had a practice for the past several years to initially raise taxes, but then abate all or a portion back each year to the taxpayers.

The efforts in Grayslake D46 has been led by Board Member Michael Carbone for the past 4 years.  He has repeatedly and consistently been fighting for the taxpayers of the district despite the personal and many unfounded attacks on himself.

I will have the data soon that Carbone presented to the board like he does each year.  Mr. Carbone presents an economic housing report of the school district.  This year was worse than ever showing 52.5% of the homes sold were in distress.

The chart below highlights how District 46 has increased taxes twice as fast as inflation, yet their student population has remained basically flat.

D46TaxIncreases

Many small business owners parents and other district residents this year joined the call to stop raising taxes. They must remain vigilant in the upcoming spring elections and in the budget and levying process every year going forward as well.

UPDATE: Below are the housing statistics presented by Michael Carbone at the D46 school board meeting.

2012 Closed Sales Distress Sales Normal Sales Total 2012 Distress Sales Normal Sales Total 2012
Under 100k 54 11 65 29 14 43
100-149k 18 35 53 48 22 70
150-199k 0 10 10 29 36 65
200 & Above 0 2 2 8 38 46
72 58 130 114 110 224
Sold in Distress
186 168 354 52.5% 2012 Prediction was 52.1%

 

ATTACHED DETACHED
2011 Closed Sales Distress Sales Normal Sales Total 2011 Distress Sales Normal Sales Total 2011
Under 100k 51 4 55 33 7 40
100-149k 20 28 48 47 18 65
150-199k 0 6 6 30 41 71
200 & Above 16 65 81
71 38 109 126 131 257
Sold in Distress
197 169 366 53.8% 2011 Prediction was 48%

 

ATTACHED DETACHED
2012 Active Properties Distress Sales Normal Sales Total 2011 Distress Sales Normal Sales Total 2012
Under 100k 35 1 36 20 2 22
100-149k 16 9 25 33 2 35
150-199k 1 6 7 34 18 52
200-249k 17 14 31
250 & Above 6 22 28
52 16 68 110 58 168
Sold in Distress
162 74 236 68.64%
2013 Prediction for sold homes is 68.4%

 
 

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About Lennie Jarratt

Small Business Owner, Education Watchdog, FOIA expert, Founder of For Our Children's Future

  • Wolf

    Freezing these bloated operations is no relief to the taxpayers. The massive over staffing and excessive compensations plus their fraudulent millionaire pension plans needs to be restructured and reformed. The rape and robbery of the taxpayers needs to be rectified. There is absolutely no reason for spending over $7K per student annually in these Public Education Systems when the Parochial and Private Systems provide a much better outcome with substantially less. This same excess exist throughout the entire Public Sector operations: Fire, Police, Public Works, Park Districts, Libraries, Public Universities, etc. This is the reason why the private economy is anemic and the primary reason for the impending bankruptcy of the nation. We are over $20 Trillion in debt (Treasury and Fed). There is $2.5 Trillion that can be cut from the annual budget of Federal, state and local operations and transferred back to the private to stimulate real growth and lower these oppressive tax levels. The last thing we need is to freeze these excessive operations as a baseline of their budget and then get hit from hidden taxation to allow the ridiculous COLA levels to continue. We need major restructuring and reform here and that means real cuts and headcount reductions something that is done in the private sector all the time. The $50 Trillion obligation for their fraudulent millionaire pension plans can be cut by over $37.5 Trillion relieving the taxpayers of another disaster down the road. All the deficits can be eliminated today not some mystical 30 years down the road.

    • LennieJarratt

      This is a start. We cannot make massive changes overnight. With some school districts finally recognizing that taxes are out of hand is a great first step.

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