Why isn't there a tax revolt in McHenry County?
When your home's value drops 25-30% and your real estate property tax goes up 15.7%, isn't it way past time to scream, "Enough!"
Show up at City Hall, the County Board, your fire station, and especially at the School Board and TELL them you are fed up. Tell them you want to see some meaningful cuts and reductions in pay for employees, so that your taxes go down and you can still afford to live in McHenry County. Tell them that, if they don't figure out a way to cut expenses, then you'll vote in somebody who will!
Look at what the school district sucks out of your wallet, and yet they want even more from the State (which comes from you).
Learn how the "system" works, and work to change it. You can't control the value of your home. You've heard of Fair Market Value; right? That's what a willing buyer pays a willing seller. Note the keyword: willing.
Right now it's a buyer's market. Sellers feel like they are getting ripped off.
But just fighting for a lower assessed valuation is not the whole answer, because the taxing authorities have figured out how to rip the same number (or more) dollars out of your pockets. And that's why your house price can go down and your property taxes can go up!
Why are those clerks needed at the payment window at the courthouse to take your $100 fine for speeding plus $150-175 for "court costs and fees"? Why not just put a barcode on your fine sheet from a judge's clerk and go downstairs to an ATM and pay your fine? Or pay it online? Kind of adds insult to injury, doesn't it, when a $50,000/year clerk behind the window takes your money.
But it's also important to challenge the level of "court costs and fees". The County Board (that's your County Board - the McHenry County Board) and the State legislature (and you know who your reps are from this area) are the ones responsible for the $150-175 added to your fine. The judges will tell you, "Don't get mad at me (the judge) or the women downstairs at the payment windows."
The judges have to know that the financial damage of a fine for a Guilty verdict is small potatoes, compared to the court costs and fees. They just can't do anything about it. You can!
It will take relentless pressure on elected officials to get a change. A few griping letters to the editor and phone calls won't do it. If we want to pay less, then we must do with less.
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11 comments:
Check your facts! There isn't a CLERK at the courthouse making 50k!
This isn't the US Post Office.
The most recent news article about the clerks union new wage increase stated that AFTER the pay increase at the end of 2014 the top pay will be $18.60. Since they work a 1950 hr work year. (7.5 hour day)the most a clerk could earn is $36,270 at the end of 2014. Most are in the $20 thousand range.
Don't embellish the story with you incorrect hyperbole.
CC, you're sipping at the Kool-Aid again.
Now you're making me wonder if the County publishes the names, positions and salaries of every employee, for public inspection.
If there is no CLERK at the courthouse earning $50,000, then what is the correct title?
Your comments are entirely accurate, and I absolutely agree that the electorate needs to hold their elected officials' feet to the fire.
But just to remind everyone, the assesed value vs the actual value of a property is not the means by which taxes are to be paid. Their purpose is comparative - meaning they are used to proportionately DIVIDE the total taxes to be paid as demanded, or "levied", by the bodies on your tax bill.
So while you KNOW your assessed or FMV is entirely laughable, so are the rest of your neighbors' as well. So while factually inaccurate, as long as a property that is worth 3x yours in the current reality is paying 3x the property taxes you are, the system is working properly.
Darnit, Gus!
Are lookin' at them public records again?
I don’t doubt that someone’s property tax bill in McHenry County went up that much. What should be publicized is what taxing bodies on the bill contributed to that specific increase.
In my little neck of the McHenry County woods, with the exception of one body’s pension increase, my overall bill is about $150 less this year. And I think generally, it’s due our having raised bloody hell locally for 3 YEARS now. And of course, we only attained this small victory now that our respective bodies have basically spent down their savings and rainy day funds almost entirely. While individually, we promptly recognized our own dire straits immediately in 2008-2009, these taxing bodies and governing officials only did so reluctantly, and probably only ‘cause there ain’t no money no more.
Which means that if their estimates on income in this year’s Budgets fall short, we’re screwed.
And yet the MCC wants to spend almost $300 million for an expansion? Granted, financing rates are low and bids are likely quite competitive. Yet we’re going to borrow even more now, when most of those paying their bills can’t even afford what we already own and operate? While the College might very well point to the savings to be had now – and to the balance sheet of the College – they’re ignoring the fiduciary responsibility they owe those who have to pay for it. You and me. They’re forgetting that John Q Taxpayer is owed equal consideration, the consideration it appears they feel due the college alone.
That better change, and better change soon.
You love the FOIA so much. Why don't you file one to what the clerk sitting behind the window makes a year. It's a far cry from $50 G a year. I don't think there are any supervisors of the clerks that make 50 grand a year.
Since you don't have a tax bill to look at. Maybe you can barrow one from a homeowner or look online and see how the tax distribution breaks out. Aim your sights on the school districts that take anywhere from 69-72% of the taxes. Depending if you live in the city limits or what township you are in. The county portion is somewhere around 9%.
Didn't District 200 spend around $300,000 to build a new concession stand only used about 20 times a year. You could buy property and build a real nice three bedroom house for less. How many tax bills did it take to fund that Taj Mahal?
Concerned Said:
>>>> “You love the FOIA so much. Why don't you file one to what the clerk sitting behind the window makes a year. It's a far cry from $50 G a year. I don't think there are any supervisors of the clerks that make 50 grand a year. Since you don't have a tax bill to look at.
Concerned – You don’t need a tax bill to look at, and I’m almost certain that Gus is hinting at having seen a report that is required to be publicly published yearly in a newspaper of record that one doesn’t need a FOIA to review. I doubt he’d bring it up if it weren’t out there.
A fairly recent Wall Street Journal article sited a published study showing that on average, when toting up wages and benefits in the government sector as compared with the private sector, local and county averages have those employees enjoying 125% recompense as compared to the private sector. At the state levels? 150%. At the Federal level? 200+%.
Most of us in the private sector need work 2080 hours per year. You yourself cite 1,950 – so, 130 hours a week less. And again, if not allowed breaks, but a half hour for lunch, our day stretches out to 8.5 hours, not your cited workday for “clerks” for McHenry County at 7.5 hours.
Clerks work a 7.5 hour day and get an UNPAID lunch. Most places you refer to at 2080 provide a paid lunch. If you think 18.60 for TOP pay for a clerk is big pay then sign up at the county. I think the pay matrix is something like 15 years to get to top pay. Starting at just over $12 and this is the projected pay in 2014.
Why is it that the county board never seems to miss a pay increase for a PART TIME job.
Most "regular" folks work an 8.5 hour day with an UNPAID lunch.
So what's your point?
My point is that their union leadership decides for their members that they'd rather be home an hour earlier.
All the same, most "regular" folks eat at their desks unpaid all the same even during lunch. Both types of employees' receivers and dial pads have mustard smears, yet one "class" of employees get to go home an hour early.
So again, what's your point?
You sound less like you're a "Concerned Citizen", rather than as a "Concerned Union Member" to me.
Next, "Concerned" will advise me that in light of what I've said to be true of my past employers and those of my friends - that I should seriously consider finding myself a better class of employer?
To that I'd add - so too then, should County employees as well.
Boo-Hoo!
Concerned Said:
"Why is it that the county board never seems to miss a pay increase for a PART TIME job."
I'll tell you why:
1) MOST people these days WANT and NEED a FULL-TIME gig, and pass up looking at part-time jobs. That is, unless a part-time gig becomes more lucrative than other alternatives per hour.
2) The County needs more part-timers now, since their full-timers work 1 hour less on average, than their private sector cohorts.
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