State income tax, pensions debated at candidates forum

Taxes were among the topics at Sunday's League of Women Voters candidates forum at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library.

Candidates who participated included the nominees for state representative in the 54th District.

Incumbent Republican Tom Morrison said he favors such measures as pension and workers' compensation reform as ways of relieving property taxpayers.

Adding that Illinois needs to grow its economy, he said, "If we had more taxpayers, if we had fewer vacant buildings, we would see reduction in property taxes."

Democratic challenger Maggie Trevor said she favors moving to a graduated income tax and pumping more state money into education.

"Two-thirds of our property taxes are a result of the public school system. And the reason why we have such high property taxes is because state funding of education has decreased so dramatically."

Regarding the state's $130 billion pension crisis, Morrison recommended keeping the hole from getting deeper by preserving existing pension credits and changing state law to allow individual portable accounts "like defined contribution plans."

However, Trevor said, "Changing the pension plans of people who are current employees isn't going to make enough of a dent to make that much of a difference."

State taxation and the state pension crisis were also discussed by the two candidates in the 27th Senate District.

Democratic challenger Ann Gillespie said, "I think we need to restructure our whole approach to taxation in this state." Illinois is one of only nine states in the country that has a flat income tax, she said.

"We need to move to where 36 other states in the country are and that's toward a progressive income tax." Gillespie added. "Under most of the models you see, that actually reduces the income tax burden on 90 percent of the families in the state of Illinois."

She also said the state should take a look at opportunities for revenue and the way tax increment financing districts are handled.

Incumbent Republican Tom Rooney said, "Illinois does not have a revenue problem. Illinois has a spending problem. And for people who want to wave their hands and say all we have to do is just restructure our income tax so that we can keep spending all these promises that we keep making that we can't pay for, I don't support that."

Regarding the pension system, Rooney pointed to the solution provided by a bill that made it through the senate with bipartisan support but died in the house that would have slowed down the growth in the pension system.

"Notice, not cutting the pensions, just slowing the growth," he said.

Gillespie said the state needs to honor its obligations and amortize the debt, suggesting bond financing at the beginning to stabilize the program and standardize the payments.

"For 30-plus years, the state has not been funding pensions at the rate it was supposed to be funding," she said.