A week or two ago, we went off on the smoke and mirrors tactics of some state legislators (notably State Sentator Terry Link) who are seeking to shift the debate from some budget reduction proposals that make real sense (like eliminating Townships) and talk about silly ideas like consolidating small school districts that will cause a lot of people angst for very little real savings. We're not the only ones to have noticed this and voiced concern.
This week, Pioneer Press ran a great letter to the editor from Jan Schnobrich of Lake Bluff, who goes off on Senator Link and proposes, as we did, that the elimination of the township layer of unneccesary government is an idea that could actually save the state millions. I don't know Ms. Schnobrich, but her letter was so good, I am posting it below. Give it a good read, and then call Senator Link and let him know how you feel.
Eliminate townships in Lake County
I was listening to WGN early Sunday afternoon (March 22) on my way home from my morning meeting as Rick Pearson spoke with Republican Senator Dan Cronin of Lombard and Democratic Senator Terry Link of Waukegan on the subject of Governor Pat Quinn's budget presentation. Senator Cronin stated that he wanted to be part of the solution for meaningful fiscal reform and that he has accepted the fact that a tax hike will be necessary. However, he also stated that he was offended by how the state got into the financial mess in the first place.
Terry Link, Chairman of the Lake County Democratic Party and a Majority Whip in the Illinois Senate, stated that there had to be other ways to balance the budget without raising taxes or cutting services. He cited the fact that there were over 6,600 units of government in Illinois, more units than any other state in the Union, which the taxpayers had to support, but he offered little in the way of concrete solutions other than to say school districts could be consolidated to save money. Further, Senator Link stated that Illinois lawmakers need to pour over the budget (he didn't identify for how long) in order to determine if there was a way to balance it without raising taxes, and that Governor Quinn's proposed budget was just a matter of inexperience in the budgeting process.
Now, I am not an accountant type, but even I know that the State of Illinois is in deep, deep, financial trouble. I also know that this crisis has been years in its gradual evolution, starting with the term of Governor George Ryan and his ILLINOIS FIRST program and running through one and one-half terms of Governor Rod Blagojevich. In my book, this disaster-in-the making has encompassed at least 10 years of spending without any true accountability.
During those 10 years that Terry Link and "legislative company" have been key players in Springfield nothing has been done to reform the way our schools have been funded. We are still encumbered with reliance on local real estate taxes to finance our schools at the expense of those who reside in more affluent areas and with costly human sacrifice to those who live in the economically depressed districts. It is probably true that there are areas where school districts could be consolidated to save money, but the greater truth is that too many inflated egos have controlled the Illinois legislature to allow for any meeting of the minds in efforts to pursue a focused course toward School Funding Tax Reform.
Secondly, of the 6,600 government units cited by Senator Link, 1,440 are townships located in 87 of the 102 counties in Illinois. These government units govern not at all, but do siphon off millions of tax dollars each year to replenish their coffers. Townships have only one local mandate-to administer to the needs of those who qualify for General Assistance (G.A). Since the 1930's, federal and state welfare agencies have taken over nearly all of the demands for services to the indigent, and townships now bear little of this responsibility. Presently, private not-for-profits work in tandem to supplement federal and state grants to those qualifying for assistance, and townships mainly continue to levy to meet their our economic/political needs-to support in-house salaries and benefits, and the pensions of the vested elected officials and hired personnel for life.
County government, as the governing authority in Illinois, chose to establish the 18 townships in Lake County. Lake County government can choose to dissolve those 18 townships. It is my suggestion to Democratic Senators and Majority Whips Terry Link (District 30) and Susan Garrett (District 29), and Michael Bond (District 31) as well as Republican Senator Dan Duffy (District 26) - all of whom were elected to serve Lake County residents - to attune themselves to the very real possibility that they can apply the pressure and enact legislation to eliminate the waste in "government" spending simply by eliminating townships in Illinois, starting with the 18 in Lake County.
Jan Schnobrich, Lake Bluff
Well said, Ms. Schnobrich!
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6 comments:
What would Ed Sullivan - Mundelein Republican - do with the pay cut if Townships were eliminated? What would happen to part of his pension that was due to service to a governmental organization that becomes history?
How about no double-dipping politicians?
How about not failing to question a witness comprehensively (i.e. Roland Burris) and then trying to catch him in some sort of perjury? He is not the perfect politician though maybe the Repubs in Springfield can ask one question at a time and follow-up on questions that require further explanations. (i.e. law school 101).
How about demonstrably cooperating instead of writing press releases about how horrible the Dem's are?
1. Trusting a government that can't police itself much less govern to overhaul a township system is something worthy of the Colbert Rapport. Given how well they do things down there this will take awhile and it's a multi-year project at best.
2. The real issue isn't these township governments, it's the springfield scum on both sides-I'd love to see a lot of our guys primaried and taken out for impotence and RINOing-TA/Louis/Phil time for a 2nd job? This economy didn't just get bad, and these problems didn't just happen, the democrats down there spent all last year out of state campaigning for obama and partying for him, while they pantsed the taxpayer and blamed it on blago. Terry Link had all the time in the world to talk to some escargot eating frog papers about his poker games with barack, not a lot from that clown on the job we pay him twice the average yearly Illinois wage to do. If we had a state party, they'd figure how much time these worthless urchins spent in wisconsin last year, NOT on their job here.
3. Lisa Madigan makes me sick, Andy McKenna trying to limit a GOP primary next year, makes me vomit. We need someone with balls, like the guy that runs this blog, not the arrogant stiffs at the state party that fire off misspelled press releases at 330 on a friday. If ever there was anyone you could call business as usual in an awful enviornment it's a woman who's been there since time immemorial.
-Kosuke Alfonso Reed FOKLAES
TA-
You know the original Modest Proposal was for Ireland to eat children to overcome starvation and poverty, right? I see the parallels here. Not necessarily a bad thing. I'm just sayin'.
Eliminating township government, a form of government that has efficiently provided local government services for more than 150 years, and replacing it with central county bureaucracy run from Waukegan by Chicago Democrats is a very, very bad idea.
My highway Commissioner is local, my supervisor is local, the clerk and assessor are community members, the board members are neighbors. The local community decides who is elected to these posts, not a bunch of shoreline liberals. Don't change the only local government that is efficient and accountable.
In Northwestern Illinois this past election, township positions were the hot races, something I hadnever seen before. Some school board races had no opposition. Why I asked myself. School board officials volunteer their time for the headache, but township officials get paid, on a par, here, with county board members who have a much larger jurisdiction. Heck township supervisors, which only 20 years ago was a part time position, now receive as much as 50,000 and have staff to actually do the work which the part time supervisor once did. They have, in some cases, grown their mission, now doing what schools should be doing in youth services.
My opinion is that they have some value as here we require those getting aid to do work like mowing grass in the parks. I rather like that those getting aid are known to the community and can be put in a productive direction, but with declining population that should be done by one supervisor working full time -- get rid of the staff.
Road maintaining should be done by the county -- savings of scale -- and get township trustees back to volunteer status. It wouldn' break my heart if they were abolished, but let us recognize that doing that will grow county government.
Many township supervisors, highway commissioners and assessors earn much more than $50,000 a year.
Last time I checked, Ed Sullivan, Jr. earned more than $60,000 a year to be part time Fremont township assessor. Plus benefits. The Waukegan Township supervisor makes $100K.
This is a rip off that MUST be stopped.
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