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Guest Column
Prior to 1849, taxpayers in Illinois were not burdened with the township layer of government. The township movement established a foothold in the mid-19th century, and in following decades of intense activity, townships spread like a contagion in the body politic. Today, all but 17 counties are saddled with township politicians and their spending habits. Townships are a base layer of a massive political pyramid in Illinois of 6,600 different local taxing bodies, far more than any other state in the nation. One-fifth of the 6,600 taxing bodies are townships. Townships evolved in an isolated age. They grew during the horse-and-buggy days with dirt roads and poor communications. Anachronistic and unnecessary today, townships have outlived whatever usefulness they may have once had. Townships assumed three basic duties: tax assessment, maintaining township roads and providing general assistance. Many taxpayers feel current tax assessment unfair. The township system of assessment splinters counties among a myriad of individual assessors, many of whom lack fundamental qualifications. Instead of enjoying uniform, professional tax assessment, property owners are subject to whims and idiosyncrasies of the many individual tax assessors. The ominous potential for abuse under such a scheme is unending. Few township assessors are caught with their hands in the cookie jar because of limited accountability to the public who simply cannot keep track of all the local taxing bodies, townships included. Township roads often provide the most visible display of township tax dollars. In urban areas, however, townships don't even perform this function. In rural areas the roads become the townshipper's loudest argument, but township road commissioners are inherently wasteful and cost-ineffective. Maintaining duplicative and costly road equipment in every township garage to plow and work on roads frequently crossed by county and state roads causes a tremendous overhead expense on local taxpayers. More a friend to road equipment salesmen than the property taxpayers, the township road commissioners jealously hold on to miles of rural roads as their own political turf. Counties already have highway departments while township road commissioners make up a duplicative overlay of expensive and needless bureaucracy. Eliminating township road districts would streamline government. Providing general assistance welfare of the last resort is the third function of townships. Pre-dating the Illinois Department of Public Aid, townships have closely held onto this activity. Once called "overseer of the poor" the township supervisors now dole out meager assistance amounts subject to their own criteria. Reformed in part by two class action lawsuits, Rodriquez and Henson, townships now have to follow some minimum standards. Review of township budgets frequently shows that every dollar in assistance provided some needy person cost the taxpayers more than another dollar in administrative costs. In a real sense, many supervisors and employees are the biggest welfare recipients in the township. Welfare, for better or worse, is a function of the state and federal governments. The time has come for townships to get out of the welfare business. If townships were eliminated, few would notice the loss. Property owners would find one less line on their tax bill. Although some of the tax burden imposed by townships would be transferred to county government, with proper planning for the transfer of duties, a significant tax saving would be realized in all regions of the state. Presently the art of townshipping involves pouring millions of dollars of property taxes down the township sewer into a cesspool of cronyism, nepotism, patronage and double-dipping. Townships are the last bastion of patronage — rife with political hirelings and riddled with the blight of nepotism. Requirements to work for many townships do not involve what you know or even who you know, but rather, to whom you are related. Not bound by any code of conduct, townships are breeding grounds for an army of political workers of every stripe. Outdated and superfluous townshippers won't go away willingly. Most revealing about townships is their ability to survive when they are not needed. Townships seem to survive for survival's sake. Townshippers keep finding new ways to spend money with add-on roles that replicate and duplicate other services, all in an effort to create new constituencies and thereby justify their existence. Illinois taxpayers deserve more professionally operated jurisdictions with codes of conduct that adhere to generally accepted fiscal practices. The very nature of township organization is a barrier to the public's keeping watch, which leads to limited accountability, duplication of efforts, inefficient use of resources and — the bottom line — unnecessary taxation. The Illinois Constitution provides for voters to abolish townships. The time to act is now. *
Michael Richardson of Rock Island is chair of the Township Study Group.
Click here for George H. Miller's Response 8/March 1993/Illinois Issues |
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