D214 taxpayers need candidates on their side

Last night I attended the District 214 public hearing on their 4.7 percent increase in the proposed 2010 real estate tax levy. The more I learn about the process the more I am convinced there should have been no increase in the levy.

Of course, it passed unanimously. It was disappointing to find only one other person there to make a brief statement on the subject. What I learned from the superintendent is that the real culprit causing all of our taxes to go up so much this year was the County Board of Review which reduced commercial assessed values by $4.2 billion and that shifted the burden on us hapless residential taxpayers.

Our real estate tax bill, mailed just after election day, is 12 percent more than last year (District 214's portion went up 15.4 percent).

I was upset with the 8.6 percent increase last year, but I naively believed the assessor's office when told that with housing prices in the tank and all the other things going south in our economy, it would go down this year.

My equalized assessed value went up 6.2 percent so at first I did not understand how my bill could go up another 6 percent if there is a 5 percent or less cap. Well I found out the cap is not on the taxpayer's tax, but rather on the taxing body's tax levy.

Worse, there is no cap on the amount of assessed values and thus tax burden that the county board of review can shift from commercial to residential taxpayers.

I am proposing to the taxpayers of this school district that we form a Taxpayer's Union that will nominate and hopefully elect candidates for school boards that will do something about the problem.

We will be calling an organizing meeting of this proposed Taxpayers Union soon.

Unfortunately, candidates for the April election need to file before Dec. 20 and this does not give us enough time to find qualified candidates. We will have to limit our activity to screening and recommending candidates this time.

Roland G. Ley

Arlington Heights