CHICAGO – Today, State Representative Amy Grant (R-Wheaton) joined House Republican Leader Jim Durkin (R-Western Springs) and fellow House Republicans for a press conference at the Thompson Center to decry the partisan failures of the Property Tax Relief Task Force.
The 88-member task force created through Senate Bill 1932 was charged with providing short-term and long-term policy recommendations to address Illinois’ crippling property tax burden with an initial report due by October 31, 2019 and the final report due by December 31, 2019. Not only were both deadlines missed, the draft of the final report was only provided to members a few days before the December 31 deadline and almost completely ignored Republican ideas. In addition, the final report draft was prepared solely by the House’s Democratic chair on the task force and his staff, and no meeting was scheduled to give task force members an opportunity to debate, amend or approve the report.
“Even though Republicans sought the inclusion of fact-supported solutions for local pension reform, mandate relief, increased transparency, consolidation and resource sharing among local governments to drive down costs, they were summarily dismissed by the Democrats. Meanwhile, we have stagnant values on the price of our homes,” said Grant. “Unfortunately, it’s obvious this task force was never serious about providing the property tax reform people deserve.”
House Republican Leader Jim Durkin said, “Democrats’ failure to provide any property tax relief is another clear indication of history repeating itself in Illinois. With soaring new taxes hitting families across the state, the time is now to offer real property tax relief and fix this flawed system.”
Fellow House Republicans Deanne Mazzochi (R-Elmhurst), Tom Morrison (R-Palatine), Dan Ugaste (R-Geneva) and Assistant House Republican Leader Grant Wehrli (R-Naperville) joined Rep. Grant and Leader Durkin at the press conference.
Click Here to view today’s press conference.