Kendall County Property Tax Revolt – Negotiating a Future
People ask why we chose 20% reduction in the county-wide levies. Simple answer – to get us back to where we were just 5 years ago. Think back to 5 years ago. You were working, enjoying life, and paying all your bills. Today it is quite different for many Kendall County citizens. The major difference? Cost on everything from food, to gasoline, to utilities, to taxes have increased exponentially. As I said in a previous BLOG, my property taxes have increased 50%! We must negotiate these cost lower. We buy generic food or cut back on electricity by turning off the lights when leaving a room to lowering the thermostat to save on heating bills. We can’t do that with our taxes except to try to negotiate a fair rate with the county.
Let’s take a look at something we all have to do from time to time – buy a car. Might be new or used, cheap or expensive. The seller is asking a certain price. You do your homework and look at your budget to make a decision on what you can afford. Right off the bat the new Lexus is ruled out along with the 1990 rust-bucket down the street in your neighbor’s front yard. You finally decide to go to a dealer where you begin negotiating the deal. If you are lucky enough to afford a new car, do you just find the one you like and write a check for the sticker price? Some people do but most of us take a percentage off the sticker and tell the salesman that is your bottom-line, out the door, price. After he stops laughing, the real negotiating begins. The same holds true for our elected officials. If you ask for nothing – that is usually what you get. The 20% is a goal – a starting point. Every negotiation must start somewhere and we feel 20% or 2008 levels are doable.
There will be those who say we can’t cut 20%. Those are the same people who haven’t lost their job, or been reduced in hours, or haven’t had an unexpected expense over the last 5 years. The rest of us have had to find the fat in our budget and eliminate it. That is all we are asking to do with the referendum on reducing the levies.
As you are out with family and friends this next week take a copy of our petition and get 14 people to sign the sheet(or as many as you can – partial sheets are okay too), get it notarized, and return it to us no later than 8/5/12(kendallcounty@gmail.com). You will be helping negotiate a deal that will help your friends, family, and neighbors more than doing nothing but complaining. You can be part of the solution. Remember that if you don’t ask – you won’t get. The first step in negotiating must begin with a request from someone. Let that someone be you!
Mark A Johnson
7:37 am on Sunday, July 29, 2012
Just one of the many comments I get from people throughout Kendall County...
"In my area, people really wanted to talk about how bad taxes are and how they can no longer afford it but they also don’t know what to do. Some signed and said that they don’t think anything will change. Others, really wanted to know how they can help. At the end of the day, I felt very lucky for what I have since many lost their jobs and living on bare minimum."
Many others are frustrated by the complexity of the property tax appeal process. If you want to make a difference - this revolt may be the last hope. We sometimes forget how lucky we are. Stand up with and for your friends and neighbors today!
cindy
8:32 am on Sunday, July 29, 2012
Thank you to those at ground level who started this process. You are intelligent people who want to make a difference. I hope that this movement reaches many and inspires everyone to support the petition. I'd also like to mention that by signing the petition, you are putting all voters in power regardless of whether or not you support the initiative. Power to the people to decide!
Laura Bee
8:50 am on Sunday, July 29, 2012
PLEASE GO TO THE OSWEGO FARMERS MARKET 9-1pm TODAY TO SIGN THE PETITION.
Just a moment of your time could make a big difference for our future. I can not afford another 20% increase in the next 5 years. I have not had a 5% increase in my salary in the last 5 years, most of us have not and will be lucky to see an increase in the next 5 years. And, if we get any type of salary increase, isn't that for our families and maintaining life. It should not go for just barely keeping up with your taxes.
We simply CAN NOT afford the continued increases. We are already 24th the in the nation for the highest taxes including all of California and the East Coast. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. PLEASE HELP. YOU'LL BE HELPING YOURSELF, YOUR FUTURE, AND INSURING THAT WE CAN ALL AFFORD TO LIVE LONG IN OUR HOMES AND THAT POSSIBLY OUR CHILDREN CAN LIVE AND AFFORD TO RAISE THEIR CHILDREN IN OUR SAME COMMUNITUES, CLOSE TO US.
Tim
5:41 pm on Thursday, August 2, 2012
It has nothing to do with 'guessing' why your taxes are going up.
Your fellow residents voted to approve multiple referendums, building and infrastructure, that now need to be paid for.
If you can not 'afford' your house because of the taxes, you never could afford that house in the first place. Why is it someone elses problem that your budget hasn't changed? Perhaps you should put some serious consideration into moving into a smaller house that you actually can afford. And by 'afford' I mean work out your payments and taxes with the expectation that they are going to go up on a year over year basis, with at least a 6 month cushion of salary in the bank. Go ahead, tell me it's 'impossible'... I DARE you.
Instead, you and this 'group' seriously want to decimate the services provided to those who CAN afford their houses. They should suffer, because you made a bad investment? I can't imagine much more of a selfish act than that.
Bruno Behrend
10:20 am on Friday, August 10, 2012
Tim's comment (8/2 @ 5:41) needs a strong and withering response, as it exposes a mindset currently destroying states like Illinois and California.
According to him, folks are supposed to "move to smaller houses" if they can't pay taxes. The taxes were voted on by our "fellow residents, " so basically "shut up and pay, or move."
What an awful, shallow, and vile mindset. These taxes usually are "voted on" in off-year spring elections, where only the greedy and organized show up to vote. School boards and trustees usually come from a class of oily misrepresenters of facts who never saw a an expensive contract clause, a shiny new fleet of cars, or a bloated municipal building project they didn't demand we fund.
Tim's viewpoint is an example of what is destroying Greece and other pockets of western civilization. Apparently, car allowances, big, unnecessary buildings, and over-staffed and over-funded bureaucrats are "public services."
According to this mindset, double-dipping in pensions, greedy end-of-career bonuses, and early retirement perks are "necessary public services."
Bull-Poop.
These aren't "services." We are becoming debt and tax slaves to a dollar-thirsty class of in-bred, protected public employees, and dollar churning bond dealers hawking projects.
Mr. Tim, instead of lecturing us to pay for your bad and expensive votes, why don't you move to a place where your mindset is destroying a decent society - California -and let us save our state.
Glass is half full
10:47 am on Monday, July 30, 2012
What is the 20% you are suggesting in cuts? Roads, Schools, Fire Department...? If I had a 20% decrease in my household income, I would have a plan for the expense side to. One without the other is a futile effort.
Greg O'Neil
5:16 pm on Thursday, August 2, 2012
A 20% cut in the property tax levy is what we're asking (demanding). The agencies would have to decide how to trim their budgets, this is exactly what homeowners must do every time we get another massive tax increase, right. Now it time for those who are supposedly serving us to figure it out. Shouldn't be too tough, they get twice as much as anywhere else to begin with.
Stephanie B.
2:21 pm on Monday, July 30, 2012
Printing the document! Thank you for doing this!!!
Becky
6:47 pm on Thursday, August 2, 2012
There is a good point here, regarding what made the rates go up. Five years is a long time, and while 20% seems to be excessive, what exactly was voted in over those five years that caused this increase? It's not as though the county decided to just jack up the cost one afternoon. Of course our wallets will benefit from lower taxes, but at what cost? What will we be losing to make up for the wallet padding?
I think we should be urging Kendall officials to focus on attracting business to the county. It seems like we pay so much because we are a farming community.
Mark A Johnson
4:26 pm on Friday, August 3, 2012
Becky: Please re-read your post. "It seems like we pay so much because we are a farming community." Are you serious? I've been here 62 years and until the last 10 years we were a farming community with everything we NEEDED and low taxes to boot. It is only since the rapid growth came that put us into this. People came from the east because of cheaper housing, a rural atmosphere, and low taxes. What changed? These same people began to realize they didn't have all the amenities they were used to with Park Districts, etc. So they began convincing everyone else they REALLY NEEDED these things and lobbied for this excess. Now with school, county, city, & township officials retiring with high 5 and low 6 figure pensions we are all left paying the bill. We have fire barns and city halls looking like Taj Mahals along with the excesses that go along with this excessive spending. Farming community is the cause? You had better look in the mirror to find the true answer. Our group is asking to stop the ever increasing property tax. Wait until the state pushes the pensions back onto the local government. NOBODY will be able to afford Kendall County. We hope to stop that from happening too. Join us before it's too late or just move out like many others have been forced to do and we all pay more for that too. Don't blame the farm community...
Becky
4:44 pm on Friday, August 3, 2012
Wow, well excuse ME, Mr. Johnson. What a rude response. If you want to attract people to your cause perhaps you should learn how to speak to them.
Becky
4:46 pm on Friday, August 3, 2012
And by the way, I can afford my taxes, even through an extraordinary lay off that almost pushed us into foreclosure and bankruptcy. But we fought it.
Good luck with your cause.
Jeri
5:08 pm on Friday, August 3, 2012
Becky,
I am so glad you can afford your bill without question. I pay mine also. I also think of my neighbors that can not. I also think of our career minded voted officials that has visualized utopia and a pension. Thank you Mr. Johnson for explaining the source of direction that falls on the Kendall County tax payers. Attracting new businesses will also place band aids on the source of the problem. They will also be eventually taxed out also.
Well managed budgets and frugality is very fashionable. When I get out of Kendall County I will look for those values.
Becky
10:30 pm on Saturday, August 4, 2012
We appealed our property tax assessment value and were able to get it reduced dramatically. Attracting business revenue will always help as a source of not only taxes but employment.
Jeri
4:01 pm on Friday, August 3, 2012
Are the pensions for these village and county workers defined plans? If so we should have California zip codes, they are filing bankruptcy due to those obligations.
Oh by the way my tree out front got a major chop chop I do not think reading is a requirement for employment and neither is apologizing.
Jeri
9:21 pm on Sunday, August 5, 2012
but we want to collect a pension and a defined one at that....