For Schaumburg, only way up is down

Daily Herald Editorial Board

There was a time, some of us remember, when if you had a big regional mall in your village, you paid little to no property tax to said village. The flood of sales taxes collected from mall shoppers made a property tax largely unnecessary.

Sure, you still paid for schools, parks, libraries and the rest, but getting a break for police protection and street maintenance and other stuff that a village provides was a sweet trade-off for having to deal with all the road-pounding traffic that your mall attracts from other towns.

That dream is still alive in Gurnee and Vernon Hills, which don’t levy a property tax. Bloomingdale has levied one since 1978 or earlier and has abated a significant portion of it each year — depending largely on the health of Stratford Square Mall.

But Schaumburg enacted its first property tax 16 months ago — the first in its history. It’s nice to see that Schaumburg leaders haven’t lost sight of their pre-election pledge to whittle away at that tax and eventually do away with it — even after the municipal election.

Good, too, that re-elected Village President Al Larson isn’t letting moss grow under his feet.

The six-term mayor predicted on the night the village board approved the new property tax just before Christmas 2009 that the result would be the village board being shown the door on Election Day.

Stiff competition during this election season — only his third challenge since being elected mayor in 1987 — kept the issue on the front burner. Larson himself made a big deal about how a property tax in Schaumburg is anathema.

A sharp downturn in the economy and a disastrous period for the auto industry had nearly emptied Schaumburg’s cash reserves. The village board approved a tax levy of $23.7 million in December 2009. Cost cutting and a less dire revenue picture allowed the board last September to trim the next levy by 4.4 percent to $22.7 million.

And now the board plans to further trim the next levy to $21.3 million — a 6 percent drop. That will be voted on this fall.

Schaumburg is unique among the suburbs. Woodfield Shopping Center and auto dealer row are economic engines unparalleled in this area.

We certainly can’t expect other suburbs to attack their own property taxes with the same vigor that Schaumburg shows. Schaumburg’s hatred of the property tax is acute — it’s still new. The rest of us are accustomed to paying one. But Schaumburg’s example should remind us that none of us likes to pay taxes, and it’s important for leaders — especially in painful economic times — to be vigilant about their spending, always looking for ways to provide taxpayer relief.

As the economy improves, we anticipate and fully expect that Schaumburg will continue to find ways to pare down that property tax until it is no longer needed at all.