Issues: Women

We can all agree that property taxes in this state - and especially in Senate District 33 - are out of control!  But the question is why are they out of control? 

Yes, the greatest burden for paying for K-12 education in this state falls on us, the property tax payer and the reason for that is that the state is not paying it’s mandated share of school costs. And yes, the state owes our local governments money like it owes the schools, meaning that we have to make up the difference, again, in our property taxes. But an area that has a huge impact on how high our property taxes are is never discussed and that issue is state and local corporate welfare. 

Every dollar that is handed over to state or local businesses is a dollar that is taken away from services that we voted to provide: public schools, good infrastructure, first responders and services for seniors and kids in need. Who has to make up that difference? We do, of course.

Billions of our tax dollars are given away to perfectly profitable, healthy corporations in this state through “incentives” created by bad laws here in the state. 

I have a record of fighting against these giveaways.  I have actively and publicly fought this fight, and will continue to do so. When corporations wanted millions of our district’s tax dollars, I helped lead a campaign to fight against Springfield, and we won. I stood up against Mike Madigan and Governor Quinn, and FOR the voters in School District 300, and we were able to keep millions of dollars in the hands of our local school district instead of being given away to corporations. I have a strong record on this, and will continue to fight against corporate welfare in Springfield.

And it’s not just Springfield handing out our tax dollars – local governments are doing it too. 

For example, the Village of East Dundee is a local “leader” of using bad state laws to take our property tax dollars and hand them over to local businesses without our permission.  

In the past several years East Dundee has used State Tax increment Financing or “TIF” laws to give millions of our property tax dollars away to a very wealthy local businessman who doesn’t need the money but who fancies himself a developer.  This businessman has used our tax dollars to reopen a private club in East Dundee and to build or rehab several buildings in town to lease or sell at a profit.  EastDundee even used our tax dollars to annex property that wasn’t even within their city limits, to then give GAT Guns over $5.5 million of our tax dollars to expand.

These handouts and others by East Dundee are so high that they are costing every other taxing body that touches East Dundee. For instance, East Dundee tax dollar giveaways are costing School District 300 over a million dollars per year. That means that their giveaways are costing us, the property tax payers of District 300, a million dollars per year.  And East Dundee is not alone; virtually every town, village and city within District 33 has used Tax Increment Financing to divert property taxes to businesses and even huge corporations.  Keep in mind that every dollar diverted by a village from property tax coffers to businesses is a dollar that has to be made up somehow to pay for the services that we want and need.  And guess who has to make up that difference – us!

If elected, I will fight to rein in the abuse of TIF laws and change those laws so that the neither the state nor Villages like East Dundee can no longer hand out our tax dollars without our permission.