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Waukegan joins school districts backing sales tax referendum: ‘A source of income that will benefit our students’
Posted in 220, Barrington Education Association, Board of Education, Chicago Tribune, Cost of Living, District 220 referendum, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Illinois Federation of Teachers, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Property Taxes, School Districts, Taxes, Unions, What the Ficke (Bradford)? on April 30, 2026| 1 Comment »
CUSD 220 has reportedly already requested the 1% county sales tax referendum be placed on the Nov. 3 Ballot.
By Steve Sadin | For the Lake County News-Sun
A referendum proposing a 1% countywide sales tax to fund education is a step closer to reality now that Lake County’s largest school district has joined a group asking Regional Superintendent of Education Michael Karner to take the necessary steps to place it on the Nov. 3 general election ballot.
If public school districts representing more than 50% of the students in Lake County approve resolutions asking Karner to certify the referendum to County Clerk Anthony Vega by Aug. 26, voters will decide the fate of a proposed 1% sales tax funding education.
Already directing Karner to place the referendum on the Nov. 3 ballot are: Barrington Community Unit School District 220 (3,489 students), Wauconda Community Unit School District 118 (3,504 students), Lake Zurich Community Unit School District 95 (5,777 students), Kildeer Countryside School District 96 (3,419 students), Lake Buff School District 65 (877 students) and Big Hollow School District 98 (1,653 students).
The full article can be read here.
Note: An attorney quoted in the article said, “proceeds from the sales tax can only be used for long-term capital improvements, such as building renovations or repairs, like a new roof, school resource officers, or mental health professionals.”
5 things to know about Illinois’ new school rating system
Posted in Agendas, Barrington Education Association, Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Education, Elections, Ethics, FUBAR, His Master's Voice, Illinois Federation of Teachers, Illinois Policy Institute, Immigration, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, School Districts, SNAFU, Springfield, Taxes, Transparency, Unions, What the Ficke (Bradford)? on April 30, 2026| 2 Comments »
Labels on the familiar state report card are poised to change.
By Hannah Schmid | Illinois Policy Institute
Illinois plans to revamp how it rates public schools, meaning familiar labels on the state report card will change.
The Illinois State Board of Education in April approved a new school accountability system beginning in fall 2026.
The board says the overhaul will make school ratings clearer and fairer. The changes also remove some key measures and reshape how performance is judged.
Yet at a time when nearly half of Illinois students can’t read at grade level and even fewer are proficient in math, the board’s overhaul will change how schools are labeled but not how they perform.
Here are five things you should know about the changes while the plan awaits federal approval.
1._Schools will no longer be graded on a curve.
Illinois’ rating system ranks schools against each other. Only the top 10% can be in the top category and only the bottom 5% are ranked in the lowest.
The rankings are based on a school’s performance against other schools rather than strictly on how well its students meet specific criteria.
The new system will grade schools based on fixed standards. The goal is to eliminate moving goalposts, where a school’s rating could change based on comparison to other schools even if its performance doesn’t change. That could make ratings more consistent over time.
Article continues here.
Pritzker’s 57 tax and fee hikes cost Illinoisans $77 billion
Posted in Barrington Education Association, Cost of Living, Deception, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Fat Bastard, Illinois Federation of Teachers, Illinois Policy Institute, Immigration, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Taxes, Unions on April 29, 2026| Leave a Comment »
The governor has presided over $77 billion in increases while Illinois’ economic growth lags.
By Ravi Mishra | Illinois Policy Institute
Gov. J.B. Pritzker wants more tax and fee hikes even after presiding over at least 57 of them since 2019 and with Illinois’ budget still in dysfunction.
New tax and fee burdens under Pritzker have cost taxpayers more than $77 billion. Last year alone, Illinoisans paid $16.5 billion more in state taxes than they would have if taxes stayed consistent with 2018 levels.
The median Illinois household now pays nearly $1,400 more per year in state taxes than it would have under prior levels.
Examples of recent tax policy moves in Illinois:
- The gas tax was doubled in 2019 from $0.19 to $0.38 per gallon and indexed to annual increases to inflation. It now stands at 48.3 cents per gallon.
- The net-operating-loss deduction was capped in 2021, effectively double-taxing Illinois companies.
- Late last year Pritzker signed a bill decoupling Illinois from federal business tax cuts.
Property taxes have risen 27% under Pritzker’s watch. While driven by local decisions, state policy, particularly around pension and school funding, has pressured local governments and contributed to those hikes.
Article continues here.
Barrington Area Council of Governments meets tonight
Posted in Appointments, BACOG, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Lennie, Open Meetings Act, Overhead, Politics, Property Taxes, Real Estate, School Districts, South Barrington, Springfield, Taxes, Transparency, Unions, Village President on April 28, 2026| Leave a Comment »
The Barrington Area Council of Governments (BACOG) is scheduled to meet this evening beginning at 6:00 PM at the Village of South Barrington Village Hall, 30 South Barrington Road. Their meetings will include:
- 6:00 PM – Finance
- 6:40 PM – Nominations
- 7:00 PM – Executive Board
Meeting agendas are not posted by BACOG, nor are minutes, but their website does state, “Copies of approved minutes for BACOG committee and executive board meetings are available upon request. Please submit requests by email to bacog@bacog.org.
Pritzker pushes housing plan described as ‘all stick,’ no carrot
Posted in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI), Elections, Fat Bastard, Immigration, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, The Center Square, Unions, Zoning Board on April 27, 2026| Leave a Comment »
Pritzker’s ideal community…
By Jim Talamonti | The Center Square
Gov. J.B. Pritzker is pushing to prevent local communities from restricting housing development, but local leaders say state preemption of local control may not address high housing costs.
The governor discussed his Building Up Illinois Developments plan during an AARP Illinois tele-town hall on Monday and said the high cost of housing burdens one in three older households.
Pritzker said said the state’s home listings have dropped 64%.
“Our failure to build is in part due to restrictive statutes and regulations in towns, cities and counties,” the governor said.
Several of Pritzker’s proposals would restrict local authority.
The Illinois Senate Executive Committee discussed House Bills 4060, 4061, 4062, 4063 and 4064 during a subject matter hearing that lasted more than five hours on Friday.
The five bills are all part of the governor’s BUILD initiative.
More here.
Related: “Pritzker’s affordable housing plan gets Senate hearing as municipalities remain opposed,” “Village of Barrington President shares perspectives on Pritzker’s BUILD plans,” “(Ignoring public opinion) Pritzker says of BUILD Plan for homes would not cost taxpayers,” “Gov. JB Pritzker’s ambitious housing plan for Illinois: More four-flats, looser rules,” “Pritzker to propose statewide zoning laws to spur homebuilding, limit local control,” “McLaughlin’s press conference video recording regarding Pritzker’s proposed municipal zoning powers grab posted,” “‘It’s just a bad idea’: Suburban officials oppose Pritzker’s plan to reduce local control over residential It’s just zoning”
Village Board of Trustees meet tonight
Posted in Aunt Blabby, BACOG, Board of Health, Building Department, Clown Car, ePacket Agendas, Equestrian Commission, Ethics, Finance Committee, Financial Reports, Insurance Committee, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Little Duck Butt, Minutes, OMA, Pension Funding, Plan Commission, Police Pension Board, Police Reports, Politics, Property Taxes, Public Safety, Real Estate, Road construction, Roads & Bridges Committee, Taxes, The Land We Love Run, Tree Preservation Ordinance, Unions, VBHPD, Village Attorney, Village Board, Village Clerk, Village Code, Village Director of Administration, Village Engineer, Village President, Village Treasurer, Yabba Dabba Doo, Zoning Board on April 27, 2026| Leave a Comment »
The Village Board of Trustees will be conducting their regular monthly meeting this evening beginning at 6:30 PM. Topics on their agenda include:
- [Vote] Minutes – March 30, 2026
- [Vote] A Resolution Authorizing the Execution of a Contract with Corrective Asphalt Materials LLC (CAM) for Pavement Rejuvenation Application on Select Village-Maintained Roads Resolution 26 –
- QuadCom 911 Dispatch Update
- [Vote] Ordinance Amending Section 4-6-6 of the Village’s Tree Preservation Regulations Ordinance 26 –
- Register Now: Land We Love Run 5K/10K Celebrating America250 on June 28, 2026
A copy of their agenda, including info on listening to the meeting, can be viewed and downloaded here.
A World Without Billionaires
Posted in John Kass, OP/Ed, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Taxes, Unions on April 26, 2026| Leave a Comment »
By Steve Huntley | John Kass News
You’ll be reading this on a tablet, smart phone, laptop or desktop computer. Pause for a moment to consider the wonder and magic of these devices.
They and the software already embedded in them, or added to meet your needs, do so much: Written, voice and video communications, and those available on a global scale. Encyclopedia-like sources of information. Entertainment, music and movies. Instantaneous complex calculations. Electronic credit card payments. Help to do your taxes. GPS-based travel instructions. Photographic and video memories of your life. And many more functions that you could add.
And the devices are wealth creators, generating jobs to make, market and distribute these remarkable products and inspiring new jobs and commerce in new businesses made possible by the digital revolution.
Yes, there are downsides such as obsessive screen time, the poison of social media, especially for children, and fears about AI. But no one would give up these devices that have so transformed and enriched our lives.
And they have more directly enriched their inventors, making some people fabulously wealthy, the most successful of them billionaires.
Some of the names behind the digital revolution are familiar. Like the late Steve Jobs, the genius of Apple. Michael Dell of the eponymous Dell Technologies. Bill Gates of Microsoft. Elon Musk, a trailblazer in internet, electric car and space ventures. Jeff Bezos who made tens of millions of us turn from the shopping mall to e-commerce. Mark Zuckerberg, a pioneer in social media. There are many other names you can add to this list of those who have enriched our lives and thereby made themselves fabulously wealthy.
Not among the names of those responsible for our wondrous modern lifestyle: Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Or any of the other advocates of special taxes on the “rich.”
They are not inventors like those who gave us the smart phone. They are not creators like those who saw these amazing devices and thought up Facebook, Instagram, X/Twitter or other social media platforms. They are not far-sighted investors who saw new ways to make money in the digital world, such as through Amazon, PayPal, Ebay and the like.
No, Sanders, AOC, Mamdani, Warren and their like can only come up with ways to pick the pocket of those who have prospered from their creative imaginations. These politicians and activists have more in common with thieves, parasites and leeches than they do with the inventive, visionary and original minds behind the technologically advanced world we live in today.
The feeble imaginations of these rabble-rousing politicians can only feed on envy, can only come up with new tax schemes. And those machinations, for all the high-minded words pushing them, have but one aim: to expand the reach of government and make as many people as possible dependent on government. That of course increases the power of the politicians pushing the schemes. Sanders and Democrat Rep. Ro Khanna of California are proposing a new wealth tax on billionaires.
Unleash Prosperity, a free-market advocacy organization, counts eight states that “already have or are considering raising income or wealth taxes.”
Illinois Democrats are pushing a constitutional amendment for 3 percent tax on anyone making more than $1 million a year. That would hit far more than billionaires, ever increasing the tax burden of doing business in Illinois for enterprises large and small. The good news is that Democrat leaders in the Legislature don’t have the votes to get it on the ballot this year. The bad news is that they aren’t giving up and will try to get it on the ballot for the 2028 election.
Commentary continues here.
Pritzker’s affordable housing plan gets Senate hearing as municipalities remain opposed
Posted in Capitol News Illinois, Elections, Fat Bastard, Intergovernmental agreements (IGA), Land Use, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, School Districts, Springfield, Unions, Village Code, Zoning Board on April 25, 2026| Leave a Comment »
New homes are shown under construction in Wheeling, Illinois, Monday, Aug. 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)
By Aidan Klineman and Medill Illinois News Bureau
Article Summary
- The Senate Executive Committee heard nearly three hours of testimony on Gov. JB Pritzker’s BUILD plan for more affordable housing in Illinois.
- Proponents of BUILD argued that the primary driver of the current housing affordability crisis is a lack of supply caused by legislative hurdles and different municipal priorities.
- Opponents argued that BUILD infringes on local authority and imposes a “one-size-fits-all” approach to residential zoning.
Read the full article here.
Related: “Village of Barrington President shares perspectives on Pritzker’s BUILD plans,” “(Ignoring public opinion) Pritzker says of BUILD Plan for homes would not cost taxpayers,” “Gov. JB Pritzker’s ambitious housing plan for Illinois: More four-flats, looser rules,” “Pritzker to propose statewide zoning laws to spur homebuilding, limit local control,” “McLaughlin’s press conference video recording regarding Pritzker’s proposed municipal zoning powers grab posted,” “‘It’s just a bad idea’: Suburban officials oppose Pritzker’s plan to reduce local control over residential It’s just zoning”
Illinois’ megaprojects bill should go no further. The effects would ripple beyond the Bears.
Posted in Better Government Association, Chicago Tribune, Clown Car, Elections, Land Use, Letters to the Editor, Look For The Union Label, Politics, Pritzker’s Rules of Order, Property Taxes, Real Estate, Springfield, Taxes, Unions on April 24, 2026| Leave a Comment »
State Rep. Kam Buckner listens as fellow state Rep. Eva-Dina Delgado answers questions while meeting with a House committee on a transit funding plan during the legislative session at the Illinois Capitol on Oct. 29, 2025, in Springfield. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)
By David Greising | For the Chicago Tribune
Late last year, just days before a historic transit bill finally passed and went to Gov. JB Pritzker’s desk, it was loaded with controversial ideas.
But before the final up-or-down vote, proposals for statewide taxes on package deliveries, streaming services and even event tickets were tossed aside. Instead, the lawmakers raised the Regional Transportation Authority sales tax, hiked tolls on the Illinois Tollway and pulled in $200 million from the state’s road fund — which notably is intended for capital projects, not operations.
Today, we’re on to a different topic with yet another set of substantive last-minute changes. What started as a push to keep the Chicago Bears in Illinois has morphed into the so-called megaprojects bill, which could institutionalize negotiated tax breaks statewide for everything from the proposed One Central mixed-use development spanning DuSable Lake Shore Drive to new development around the quantum computing park along the lakefront.
Don’t count out data centers, either. They’re excluded from eligibility for now, but the industry is powerful, the potential for huge investment is appealing and legislative negotiations are far from complete.
Under the version of the megaprojects bill that the House passed this week, developers of projects costing at least $100 million could lock in privately negotiated tax cuts — so-called payments in lieu of taxes (PILOT) — for as long as 25 years. Projects worth $500 million could be eligible for 30-year agreements, and developments worth $1 billion would allow for 40 years of tax cuts guaranteed by cities, school districts and other taxing authorities.
At the center of the legislative trading that consumed Springfield this week was Chicago state Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, who also was at the center of last fall’s transit talks. Buckner has an eye for a deal. His last-minute, mixmaster approach to closing out the transit negotiations irritated several participants, but the end result was a fiscally responsible and transformative restructuring of mass transit in northern Illinois.
The stakes are high again this time. And as happens in Illinois too often, the legislature could well pass a momentous bill — one that could shift hundreds of millions of dollars in tax burden from megaproject investors to their neighbors and even the state — without serious study of the knock-on impacts on property owners, local governments and the state budget.
The broader fiscal consequences for the state, and for homeowners, businesses and others, in a bill now in front of the Senate, are as mysterious as the ideas in it are bold.
At the heart of the matter is a simple fact: It takes a certain amount of money to run a government, and someone needs to pay the bills. If a megaproject developer negotiates a 40-year tax break with the local school district, let’s say, then all the other taxpayers in that district have to make up the difference.
Buckner and others pushing for the megaprojects bill would seek to creatively mitigate the direct impact on ordinary taxpayers. Only half of the PILOT revenues would go toward property tax relief — of that, property tax rebates for neighbors of the project would account for 60%, and 40% would be deposited into the state’s existing property tax relief fund.
It’s a formulation Buckner unveiled just one day before the bill went to a House vote, with little study and just light debate.
But guess what? The PILOT funds that would cover those property tax rebates are dollars that otherwise would go toward the schools, roads, buildings and services that the taxing bodies still must pay for. One way or another, homeowners, business owners and other taxpayers will need to cover the gap.
Not to worry, the megaprojects bill backers say. Property values in the areas surrounding megaprojects will increase and property tax revenues along with them. But that’s hardly guaranteed.
Stadiums are notorious for their lack of multiplier impact, which is one reason these days why sports team owners, such as the McCaskey family that controls the Bears, have such a hard time hoodwinking governments into giving them direct subsidies to build their stadiums. And some megaprojects could even lead to decreased property values nearby. If data centers eventually are included, for example, neighbors could take a hit due to impacts on electricity costs, water access, industrial noise and other nuisances that can come into play when a megaproject moves in next door.
Despite the lack of information about the net cost or benefit of proposals considered in the megaprojects bill debate, the rush is on in Springfield. Buckner showed his talent for dealmaking this week and got a 78-32 House vote — momentum that will carry into the Senate.
And that legislative momentum could make it all the harder for Buckner and his colleagues in the Senate, who now must consider their own version, to do the right thing and consider a pause — for the long-term good of the state.
That’s right: Perhaps the megaprojects bill should stop right here, at least for now. There are too many open and unanswered questions to responsibly pass such a consequential law in such a rush.
The Bears are insisting on action now, or they just might move to Indiana. The General Assembly could deal with that risk, before the traditional May 31 close of the spring session, and table the broader megaprojects effort until the fall veto.
Preposterous? A deal is within reach, after all. But something quite similar happened with the transit restructuring last year, and the state, the northern Illinois transit system, and public transit users and taxpayers are better for it.
The alternate approach of passing a bill based on incomplete information and hoping for the best has had disastrous consequences in the past. The state’s pension systems are a fiscal disaster and national disgrace in part because “reforms” were passed with woefully incomplete analysis of their consequences.
No doubt Buckner and others have deal fever, and a successful Senate vote could be within sight. After all, the megaprojects idea has been under discussion, with Pritzker’s encouragement, for three years now, so the temptation is understandable. But the right course would be to address the Bears matter now — and use the time between today and year’s end to get the rest of the megaprojects bill right.
David Greising is president of the Better Government Association.
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