Because lord knows the County Board needs adult supervision:
I’m not generally a fan of this sort of limitation as it can lead to serious long term problems, but I think the current County Board needs to be limited.
Other interesting things Dan has been up to:
12?October?2007 – Senator Dan Kotowski By: Kotowski Staff SPRINGFIELD, IL – Illinois State Senator Dan Kotowski (D- Park Ridge) says people continue to be priced out of Cook County’s Suburban because of skyrocketing property taxes, but the Park Ridge Senator says help is on the way.The bill extends the 7% property cap for an additional three years. It also increases the maximum exemption from $20,000 in the first year to $33,000, then phases it out over the next two years by reducing it to $26,000, and finally to $20,000.“This law will provide immediate property tax relief for people in our district.” Kotowski added, “It addresses the real and frightening prospect that people are being taxed out of their homes.” Kotowski said, “I voted to override the governor’s veto because of the pressing and serious needs of property owners in my district. This law is a good first step to reduce the burden on homeowners, and to review and improve the property tax assessment process. It also will provide much needed property tax relief to veterans based on the extent of their disability.”
Kotowski concluded, “We need to do a better job of keeping people, families, seniors and veterans in their homes. They ensure that businesses thrive, schools succeed, and communities stay strong. This law keeps us moving forward in that direction.”
Those of you who follow the blog too closely, probably know I have a bit of an obsession with property taxes as I did help on some of the ratio studies done in relation to Missouri’s school funding disputes.
The Governor whined about the bill because it wasn’t permanent, but that misses an important point. In general, you shouldn’t get a permanent cap because market forces should eventually reach an equilibrium. For the last several years a housing bubble has been going up and up and up and, in fact, the ratio studies for the next cycle are likely to show further increases even though property values will be slowing. By capping the rate of increase temporarily, you can make sure the rates don’t go up too fast for owners to effectively plan for the increases.
In the long term, people shouldn’t be shielded from increasing values, but in the short term, market fluctuations are a significant problem and in a setting with incredible rates of default, reducing those increases is good policy. Using the Governor’s strategy of a permanent cap, people would have every incentive not to sell property and slow the housing market over the long term.
There’s no perfect policy, but Kotowski’s solution is a pretty decent way of addressing a pretty unstable market.