[Peace-discuss] The trouble with PTELL, or, why the Township ballot referendum failed

[Stuart Levy]

Probably most readers of this list know about the
problem with Champaign Township funding of General Assistance.

But as Carol Ammons said at the Dec 12th Township meeting,
there's been a lot of learning going on recently.  I've learned
a little and would like to let you all know, in hopes that
some of this might influence wavering City Council members,
or influence a campaign for another Township tax ballot measure.

Two very good references are the presentations Linda Abernathy 
posted on the Township web site, "Overview of Increase in Township Revenue"
and "June 2006 Report to Township Trustees", in the "Recent News" sidebar
on the main Champaign Township page,
   http://www.cctownship.com/


After (as required) spending down past surpluses from years in
which General Assistance expenditures were small and taxes
exceeded expenses, there's now been a collision: 

    (a) the General Assistance part of the Township tax levy
	had been reduced, since new money wasn't needed while
	the surplus was being spent down (as a 1998 court decision
	required it to be);

    (b) the accumulated surplus money has now been spent;

    (c) General Assistance expenses are higher than they had been,
	since Township Supervisor Linda Abernathy is now making
	it practical for legally eligible people find out that
	they *are* eligible, so that we're now actually serving more
	of the people that we should have been serving all along;

    (d) tax money needed for General Assistance has become
	*significantly* higher than it had been in the last few years,
	because of (c) and especially (b); but
	
    (e) the 1991 Illinois Property Tax Extension Law Limit (PTELL) law,
	which limits year-to-year increases in property tax collections
	on the assumption that "this year can't be all that different from last",
	was approved by Champaign County in 1996, so it applies to us now.

The PTELL law looks to be especially troublesome since it sets a limit
on the amount of tax money collected (for a given purpose) from a whole
community -- not the tax rate that each taxpayer sees.

So by acting properly in the past, our Township government is now stuck:
  - it needs money to serve people eligible for General Assistance;
  - state law (not to mention our consciences) mandates that they be served;
  - it appropriately reduced tax rates in the late 1990's when it had surpluses;
  - but now the PTELL tax cap law prevents returning tax rates to their
    historically higher levels

The only way out of this (short of Champaign County voting itself out
from restricting itself under the PTELL law, or Champaign proper voting
itself to have Home Rule status, which we could do!)
is to hold a referendum to allow a one-time increase in tax rates.

We did that this November, of course.  The Township board put a measure
on the ballot.  But the measure didn't say much; just that the Township
proposed to raise its tax rate by such-and-such amount (about $22 per year
for a $150,000 home, say).  It didn't say why the money was needed.

People who didn't know, or who got only a garbled version of the purpose
(as the News-Gazette seems to have offered this season) naturally voted
against a pointless unexplained tax increase.

But why wasn't it explained?  Why should the ballot measure be so obscure?
When we vote on school bond referenda, for example, the ballot says a good
deal about where the money will be used.  Why not this time?
Some law required it, but what, and why?

At the Dec. 12th meeting I asked what law had foisted this
restriction on the ballot measure.  Didn't get an answer,
but here it is.  It's part of PTELL itself.


The law's authors found a clever way to make almost
any tax-rate-override referendum fail.  On page 7 of
the PTELL Technical Manual, available at
     http://www.revenue.state.il.us/LocalGovernment/PropertyTax/ptell.htm
we find:

     Section 18-205 of the Property Tax Code provides that a
     taxing district may increase the limitation by referendum
     at any regularly scheduled election in accordance with the Election Code.
     The form of the ballot is specified by the law and is worded as follows:
  
       "Shall the extension limitation under the Property Tax Extension
       Limitation Law for (taxing district name) be increased from
       (the lesser of 5% or the increase in the Consumer Price Index
       over the prior levy year) % to (percentage of proposed increase) %
       for the (levy year)?"


That's just what we got on Nov. 7th.  Of course, there's no way
in this form to explain anything, and most voters had no idea what
we were voting on.

I've since spoken with two people who had voted against the referendum.
It was pretty clear that each of them would have voted in favor of
the same measure if they'd known the story.  As one put it,
    I think the voters would have gone for "we've finished 
    responsibly spending down the surplus as required by law
    and need to raise the tax rate to a sustainable level."

This is really heartening.

  - Stuart Levy