McHenry Co. Chairman Demands Conservation District Cut Taxes

From McHenry County: In light of the McHenry County Conservation District Board’s vote to raise property taxes on every county home and business, County Board Chairman Jack Franks is calling on the County Board to reject the MCCD’s proposed 2020 budget and empower voters to directly elect its trustees.

A bipartisan majority of the County Board Finance and Audit Committee – Democratic members Michael Vijuk, D-Cary, and Kelli Wegener, D-Crystal Lake; and Republican members John Reinert, R-Crystal Lake, Larry Smith, R-Harvard, and Stephen Doherty, R-McHenry – said they will not support the MCCD budget as presented.

Franks, D-Marengo, demands that the MCCD Board makes cuts to its proposed budget, and that it agrees to reduce property taxes below pre-increase levels in the next fiscal year. He thanked the County Board members for standing with McHenry County’s taxpayers. “The County Board for two straight years has reduced its levy by a total of $18 million, and voted last month to rebate $15 million in surplus funds back to homeowners,” Franks said. “Last fiscal year, MCCD padded its budget surplus by almost $750,000 – meaning it didn’t spend all the money it was appropriated – and is projected to make hundreds of thousands of dollars more just on interest from that surplus. Yet MCCD’s trustees decided they want more, and chose to raise taxes on every county resident.”
State law limits the County Board’s authority over the MCCD to the appointment of its trustees
and an up-or-down vote on its annual budget. While the MCCD’s fiscal year began on April 1,
state law gives it a 90-day window to get a budget approved in the event the County Board
rejects it.

“Like Chairman Franks, I strongly support MCCD’s mission to preserve open space and protect McHenry County’s natural treasures for future generations. However, I also support the taxpayers, and this tax increase was unnecessary,” Vijuk said. Franks said the tax increase proves that the MCCD Board of Trustees should be directly elected by the public rather than appointed by the County Board. During his early years as a state representative, Franks passed a law allowing voters to do so by referendum. Several of the County Board members said they support putting a referendum on the ballot.

“I’ve always wondered why a nonelected board can set our property taxes. With the MCCD Board’s recent decision to raise taxes while we were cutting them, I’d be open to discussion on putting a referendum on the ballot and letting the people decide,” Reinert said. “We need to make the MCCD Board more accountable to the taxpayers, and if that means having a referendum to make its trustees directly elected, then that’s what we should do,” Smith said. Franks said he passed this law for the very situation of the district going rogue and raising taxes against the will of the citizens. “Raising property taxes when people are leaving Illinois over the tax burden is the wrong answer. It’s also the wrong answer when the MCCD is adding to its budget surplus. The MCCD compensates its Executive Director more than $200,000 a year – more than every statewide officeholder, and more than our County Administrator, who oversees 27 departments and more than 1,000 employees. It employs a 13-member police force, almost half of which is the chief and sergeants. While other McHenry County agencies joined us in reducing taxes, the MCCD raised them. The County Board needs to send its budget back to them to trim spending, and put a referendum on the March 2020 ballot so that the voters can weigh in what amounts to taxation without representation.”