From the desk of:

GENE BERGHOFF

Executive Vice President

By Eugene Berghoff

Property Assessments in Illinois are currently equalized at 50% of full value. This means that if your local assessing officials appraise a parcel of property at $10,000 it would be assessed and placed on the tax rolls at $5,000. Should a county fail to reach the required level of 50%, the State of Illinois through the Department of Local Government Affairs assigns an equalizer or commonly called a multiplier and the county clerk is required to apply this percentage to each assessment in order to bring the average assessment level up to 50 % of full value.

In the late 1940's this program was initiated by law for several reasons; first, many taxing units overlapped more than one county and in order to insure that property owners would be assessed equally and pay their fair share of taxes it was necessary to enact this legislation. Secondly, the State assessed railroad property and unless the local property was assessed at the same level, taxing bodies were faced with a great number of tax objections.

House Bill 2803 was introduced at the last session of the legislature and this bill would abolish the entire equalization program.

I contacted Frank A. Kirk, Director of the Department of Local Government Affairs and requested an explanation of this bill. We quote Mr. Kirk:

"House Bill 2803, sponsored by Representatives Holloway and others, has been introduced in the General Assembly. It amends the 'Revenue Act of 1939' to provide that determination of the amount of taxes to be extended, within maximum tax rate limits, shall be based on the assessed value as determined by the local assessing officials and repeals the authority presently vested in the Department of Local Government Affairs to issue a multiplier affecting local property tax bills.

"This amendment would place the authority and responsibility for determining the amount of property taxes to be raised solely in the hands of appropriate local officials—local assessing officers and governing bodies of the various units of local government. State equalization would be retained only for the purpose of allocating state aid to schools and for other distribution of state funds where the statutory formula so requires.

"House Bill 2803 also provides for allocation of the amount of taxes to be extended in each county for those taxing districts which overlap county lines, when the counties in which the overlapping district lies have chosen to value property for tax purposes at different percentages of actual market value. Such a provision is necessary to ensure that taxpayers owning property of equal market value in the respective counties will pay substantially the same amount of taxes to support the operation of the overlapping taxing district. For example, if a taxing unit has 20% of its total actual value in County A and 80% of its total actual value in County B and is legally allowed to

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Illinois Parks and Recreation 16 November/December, 1974

FROM THE DESK OF EXEC. V. PRES....

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have $1,000,000 extended in property taxes, County A residents must provide $200,000 and County B residents must provide $800,000 in property taxes collections to that unit.

"House Bill 2803 is based on the premise that the primary purpose of state equalization is equitable distribution of state aid, and that equalization should not be used to increase or decrease the amounts to be raised for local tax purposes. The amount of local tax should be a local decision. The intent of this bill is to place that decision with local officials where it belongs. This bill has been endorsed by the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce and, in principle, by the Illinois Taxpayers Federation and the Civil Federation of Illinois."

If this bill is enacted into law it would affect the assessed valuation of each district, which of course in some cases reduce your revenues. There is a serious question in the minds of legal experts as to whether this law should be constitutional.

We must be alert and watch this piece of legislation very carefully in 1975.

Illinois Parks and Recreation 25 November/December 1974