Illinois’ 2023 effective property tax rate – taxes paid as a share of median home value – is 1.88%, highest in the nation and up from 1.78% the prior year.
Vertigo3d/Getty ImagesIf only somebody had good news about property taxes, which have long been a hot button issue in Illinois.
But the news is now worse. More importantly, nothing indicates relief will come.
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Illinois now edges out New Jersey for the highest effective property tax rates in the nation. That’s according to a report this month by Attom Data Solutions, a leading source on the topic.
Illinois’ 2023 effective property tax rate – taxes paid as a share of median home value – is 1.88%, highest in the nation and up from 1.78% the prior year, Attom’s report concludes. Of the states that border Illinois, Iowa comes closest at 1.25% – below Illinois’ rate. Rates in Missouri, Indiana and Kentucky are way lower, all around 0.80%.
It’s still worse for some of Illinois’ metro areas. Five of America’s top ten metro areas with are in Illinois, Attom found. Rockford has the second-highest effective property tax rate of all metro areas nationally, at 2.41%. Champaign-Urbana has the third-highest rate nationally at 1.95%. Peoria and Springfield are fifth and sixth worst, with rates of 1.9%. The Chicago metro area comes in eighth worst with a rate of 1.84%.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker promised property tax relief in his 2020 State of the State speech. He created a task force to make tax cut proposals. It never delivered a final report and the governor never delivered relief.
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Nothing good on property taxes has happened since, and nothing good is pending at the state level.
In fact, increases may be pending. Pritzker recently proposed eliminating the state’s one percent sales tax on groceries – a welcome step. Unfortunately, the proceeds of that tax go entirely to local governments, not the state. Local units of government therefore will be pressed to make up for the loss either by imposing their own grocery tax or increasing their main revenue source – property taxes. State lawmakers also are considering allowing increases in local property taxes for ambulance services and museums.
It’s not that property tax relief is impossible. It’s just that state lawmakers won’t even consider the options.
Those options include consolidating of some of Illinois’s absurd number of local government units — 8,923 by one count. Or reforms to prevailing wage rules and mandatory collective bargaining that are forced on local government. Or a hard look at what works for school spending, which has nearly doubled since 2007 with no improvement in educational outcomes.
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Or, heaven forbid, real pension reform.
All those matters are for state government to address. Many of your local officials are genuinely struggling to control costs, but their hands are tied. Unfunded mandates from the state prevail. State legislation needed for things like those listed above are essential, but cries for help on them go unheard.
At least one lawmaker is pushing for stricter caps on some property taxes, especially for senior citizens. That’s Rep. Joe Sosnowski, R-Machesney Park. In support, my colleague at Wirepoints testified this month to a House committee about how dire the state’s property tax crisis has become for Illinoisans.
But whether even stricter caps will progress is at the mercy of a super-majority in the General Assembly that has shown little interest.
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Illinois has elected state lawmakers who mostly are unconcerned about property taxes, so that’s what Illinois has.
Mark Glennon is founder of Wirepoints, an independent research and commentary nonprofit organization.
