Campton Hills losing state revenue to Kane County

A chunk of Campton Hills' state-shared revenue would be redirected to Kane County under an amended law set to take effect this summer.

House Bill 5011 is expected to close a legal loophole that has allowed some municipalities to continue receiving income-based tax revenue on behalf of citizens who disconnected their properties and no longer receive local services.

In Campton Hills, that may mean a loss of $150,000 a year or more to the county, the result of an estimated 1,500 people disconnecting since the village's incorporation three years ago.

Village Attorney Bill Braithwaite said Campton Hills currently receives between $100 and $135 for each citizen identified in the 2000 census and a special partial census completed in 2007, before the flurry of disconnections. However, there has been no official tally of those who withdrew to unincorporated Kane County.

"(The amendment) would be detrimental to the village, and particularly since the state is considering cutting the formula for shared revenue by 30 percent," he said. "That, combined with the loss of revenue for these (disconnected) properties, would be very detrimental, especially when you consider the village had to carry all of its own expenses without any state revenue for months after incorporation."

The bill sponsored by State Rep. Sandra Pihos, R-Glen Ellyn, and State Sen. Pamela Althoff, R-McHenry, passed the house 103-15 and the senate 54-0 last week and is awaiting Gov. Pat Quinn's signature. If signed, it would take effect July 1, giving municipalities 30 days to report population reductions as a result of disconnections.

Attorney Timothy Elliott, who represented nine groups of disconnectors in Campton Hills and who testified to legislators about the amendment, said there previously was no opportunity to keep funding in line with population changes that result from disconnections between censuses.

"There was really no tracking in between," he said. "It's a loophole in the law, and it's one that makes sense to fix so money more accurately goes to where it should go."

Braithwaite, however, contended that the amendment does not address a fundamental issue, which is state-shared revenue being based on a census that typically take place every 10 years.

Until Campton Hills completed its own special census, he said, the village received state-shared revenue based only on the 2000 census, which didn't reflect hundreds of residents who had since moved in.

He said disconnections also don't require an official head count, but are based on an estimate of 3.5 people per household, which could be inaccurate. There's also no way to tell how many people have since left those disconnected areas during the height of the housing crisis, he said.

"The issue is particularly clouded by the fact the legislation does not have any accurate means of being implemented," Braithwaite said. "There isn't any way for one to get a count of the number of people short of a new census involving disconnections."

A $150,000-a-year loss in Campton Hills would amount to 10 percent of the village's $1.5 million general fund.