Speak out against rising property taxes

My residential home property tax this year is up 20 percent, and last year it was hiked 19.6 percent. We had no improvements and used homeowners and senior citizen exemptions. I, along with several of my neighbors, find this punishing. Continued increases like this will force senior citizens out of a communities they truly love.

I’ve been told by the “experts” that the core problem is the homeowners exemption rule that the General Assembly passed a few years ago. Yet, my tax bill obviously shows that the taxing bodies, especially the high school and grade school districts, seemed to have turned a deaf ear to what thousands of government taxing bodies are doing across the country: cutting back until it hurts. I’ve sat in on enough levy-talk meetings to know that sometimes tax increases are motivated by committee officials wanting to leave their footprints in the sand. Please urge your tax-burdened readers to exercise their free speech at these public meetings later in the fall before tax levies are voted on.

Robert R. Schwarz

Arlington Heights