Op-Ed: Illinois should make it easier to clean out 6,000 government units it’s outgrown
Illinois is sort of like that spouse with bursting dresser drawers because all those old T-shirts and jeans hold favorite memories or once fit oh-so-well. But the outdated items for our state are little government units – we’ve got more than 6,000 of them, not counting school districts – and the wardrobe is about to collapse.
It’s time to ask: What do we really need and what can we do without?
Do we really need a township that sits atop the city boundaries? Do we need special government units to attack mosquitoes, clear ditches or pay the streetlight bill?
These government units were once valuable solutions to 19th century problems, when time and distance were measured by horse-drawn vehicles. But now they are mainly duplication, often irrelevant and too often job sources and pension plans for reprobate brothers-in-law.
All of that nostalgia conspires to help push Illinois to No. 2 for highest property taxes in the nation. And it’s kind of crazy to keep 6,000 of something when that means you have 1,000 more than neighbors Indiana, Iowa and Kentucky combined.
Right now, getting rid of the excess is daunting. Belleville Township is Exhibit A.
Belleville Township once collected $10 in taxes for every $1 it handed out, mainly as gift cards to 10 needy folks a week who met specific criteria. It took six employees, a building and about $550,000 a year in taxes to perform this one function for a government layer with boundaries exactly matching the city of Belleville.
Seems like a no-brainer for elimination: someone at City Hall could hand out 10 gift cards a week in less time than it takes for a coffee break. The effort to end this embarrassment started in 2012, but Illinois has 40 pages explaining its statutes for changing government structures.
Five years, a state law and a few million extra in property taxes later, Belleville Township was gone thanks to some dedicated and hard-headed residents. That same process is needed for the remaining 17 townships that mirror cities, and for the 1,400 total townships in Illinois that are notorious for corruption and whose retirees cost nearly $300 million in pension benefits over 20 years.
It shouldn’t be that hard. State lawmakers have a chance to let Illinoisans clean out the government that no longer fits.
Illinois House Bill 5276 would let local voters more easily petition for a ballot referendum to dissolve a unit of government, giving citizens direct control over how many layers of government they want. It simplifies those 40 pages of instructions, following the recommendations of a bipartisan task force that looked at the problem in 2016 and saw little reason all those little governments couldn’t be rolled up into cities or counties to cut duplication and overhead.
Instead of making reformers get petition signatures equivalent to 10% of the voters in the last general election, it drops the threshold to 5%. It lays out rules ensuring voters in all affected areas approve of dissolutions or consolidations, and for how responsibilities and property are transferred after approval.
You might get a little misty over giving up that Van Halen T-shirt, but get rid of a government layer in Illinois and the taxes you save will have you dancing in the street.
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