Sound firm leaves Cook County in rearview mirror

Noise Barriers is a company that specializes in sealing off unwanted sounds, but it recently decided that no buffer was good enough to protect it from the unwanted taxes and bureaucracy of Cook County.

So last week it began the process of moving from Schaumburg to a new location in Libertyville in Lake County.

It's what many fear could become a growing trend as, in a harsh and competitive economy where businesses are struggling just to survive, Cook can no longer fall back on its Chicago center and location, location, location to draw and retain business and industry.

"In this downturn economy, all businesses are looking to operate more effectively, more efficiently, at a reduced cost," said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a Chicago-based nonpartisan, but business-oriented government watchdog agency.

Noise Barriers owner Steven Mitchell was quick to point out there were other motivations as well. The firm already had its corporate offices in Libertyville, so "it just made sense to have our manufacturing and offices all in one place," he said. What's more, he lives in Lake County, as does much of the work force of about 30 people.

Yet, when the firm determined it was outgrowing its Schaumburg manufacturing site, finding another place in Cook County was just about the last thing the owners set out to do.

"Certainly, taxes played a part of it. I think Cook County is pretty messed up, as we all know," Mitchell added, "so not being involved in Cook County was a major incentive to move."

"It was a combination," said Marketing Manager Jessica Kottmeyer. "We kind of grew out of the space we're in now. And when we were looking around at other spaces in the area, it just became apparent that it wasn't going to work out" to remain in Cook.

"With everything from traffic and getting to work on a daily basis to taxes and all the bureaucracy that goes on, it just seems a better fit," she added.

Cook County Commissioner Timothy Schneider, a Bartlett Republican whose district includes Schaumburg, said he's heard that sort of story before.

"It doesn't surprise me," he said. "We're seeing more and more of that, especially in this tough economy."

"The Cook County property-tax system is excessively complicated," said Lise Valentine, Civic Federation vice president, in a recent study. That followed a previous study showing that, while most counties assess all properties at the same rate, Cook typically skews it so that residential properties pay lower effective rates than commercial or industrial properties.

"The historic justification has been that business can pass on the higher taxes easier to their customers," Msall said, "because of their income-producing activities."

Yet, in a competitive and increasingly global economy, a business might find that it's easier - and savvier - to move along than to pass costs along to finicky consumers.

"Ideally, we would support the elimination of the classification system," Msall added. "However, we recognize that would require very significant reforms in the Cook County government in order to avoid an undue shift to the residential taxpayers."

"What we need to do is restructure the overall tax structure in Cook County for everybody," Schneider said. "The business taxes are too high, the residential taxes are too high."

Schneider advocated lowering taxes to bring more business and residents to the county. "Broaden the tax base, and lower everybody's individual share," he said. "That's what we need to do."

Noise Barriers specializes in "architectural acoustics," Mitchell said, "helping a place be used for what it was designed for." The company's business ranges from noise-containment walls at Midway Airport to military facilities, concert settings and soundproofing the street-level studios at WBBM-TV Channel 2's new building in downtown Chicago.

Mitchell said the firm will be moving into a space almost twice as large, and paying about half of what it was paying in taxes in Cook, an estimated $60,000 savings.

"The one thing that is always left out of the equation is when a business moves out of the county, the ripple effect that it causes," Schneider said, pointing to how employees are likely to follow a moving company, depriving local taxing bodies not only of the property taxes, but also the sales taxes on good purchased locally. "It hurts everybody," he added.

"Governments are no different from any other large service provider," Msall said. "Customers and taxpayers have the ability, in many instances, their businesses, their residences are portable, and they can move to different locations."

That means Cook can no longer afford the perception of having a "corruption tax" in addition to all its other taxes. "Cook County has had a history of inefficiency and overtaxing on the sales tax," Msall said, "and it's not surprising it has created a negative environment in the business community. It's a reality that the county is not operating as effectively and as efficiently as it should be ... and as it needs to be to be competitive."