In a heated special meeting Monday, the Madison County Board voted 18-6 to postpone discussion of the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law (PTELL) referendum, moving it beyond the deadline to put it on the November ballot.
Postponing the referendum pushes it past the Aug. 15 deadline. According to state law, the referendum must be put on the ballot at least 79 days prior to the election.
Board member Ray Wesley (R) made a motion to postpone the discussion for 60 days to give board members time to research PTELL. Other board members agreed that they did not know enough about the law and did not have adequate time to make an educated decision on the matter.
Following the meeting, Madison County Board Chairman Kurt Prenzler stated that he was disappointed. He agreed that PTELL is complicated, but said “I believe the people who pay the taxes, not the politicians, should be the ones voting on it.”
“If re-elected, I will continue to pursue property tax relief for taxpayers,” he added.
During the meeting, Prenzler planned to give each board member three minutes to comment on the issue before voting on whether or not to put the referendum on the ballot.
Five members spoke before Wesley moved to postpone. Board member Mike Parkinson (D) seconded the motion.
There was an argument over whether the motion was appropriate before State’s Attorney Tom Gibbons provided some clarification over proper procedure.
“This motion only postpones for 60 days the consideration of this particular issue and therefore does not move beyond this sitting board,” Gibbons said. “The ruling by the chair that this motion is out of order is incorrect.”
Prenzler agreed to put the motion to postpone up for a vote, but reminded board members that postponing PTELL would move it beyond the ballot deadline and kill it.
Wesley responded that PTELL could still be placed on the spring ballot.
“Do we not let the county board members speak this evening,” Prenzler asked.
Gibbons clarified that discussion could continue after the vote on the motion to postpone. However, the meeting was adjourned after the vote.
Board members Don Moore (R), Mick Madison (R), Dalton Gray (R), Tom McRae (R), Chris Guy (R) and Erica Conway-Harriss (R) voted against postponing the discussion.
Moore and Madison said during the meeting that they believe the decision is for the taxpayers to make.
Board members Phil Chapman (R), David Michael (R), Ray Wesley (R), Doc Holliday (D), Bruce Malone (D), Robert Pollard (D), Matt King (D), Chrissy Dutton (R), Chris Hankins (D), Jack Minner (D), Mike Parkinson (D), Kristen Novacich-Koberna (D), Eric Foster (R), Nick Petrillo (D), Gussie Glasper (D), Heather Mueller-Jones (R), Liz Dalton (D) and Larry Trucano (D) voted in favor of postponing the discussion.
Chapman had said PTELL would certainly raise taxes. Michael and Wesley expressed concerns that they didn't know enough about PTELL to comfortably vote on it.
After the vote to postpone, Prenzler asked for a motion to adjourn. Parkinson made a motion to not have another special meeting until after the next regular board meeting.
Prenzler agreed, saying the special meetings that had been scheduled for Aug. 11-14 are canceled.
Parkinson argued that Prenzler was ignoring his motion and can be heard saying “terrible government” as the audio ended.
Prenzler previously explained that the only way for PTELL to get on the ballot is for the county board to put it there.
“The question is not so much about PTELL as it is giving taxpayers the opportunity to decide.”
The law was enacted in 1991 and has been adopted by 39 counties. It applies to approximately 80 percent of the state's population. In April 1999, Madison County voters narrowly rejected a referendum to enact PTELL. Then in 2018, Prenzler brought it up again before the board, but the issue was tabled by a 14-10 vote.
PTELL caps the total amount certain property taxes may increase year to year by the lesser of a consumer price index or 5 percent. Voters must approve increases beyond that.
“It limits the increase in the levy to the inflation rate,” Prenzler explained.
“Another thing it does is it gets rid of the 'back door referendum,'” he added.
Prenzler said a back door referendum is used by school districts and is essentially a tax increase without voter approval.
“Basically they can issue a bond that will be repaid in higher property taxes, so it’s a tax increase,” he said.
Prenzler said that in counties where PTELL has been adopted, voters must approve higher taxes in order to pay for these bonds.
However, Prenzler added that back door referenda may appear on the ballot to be voted on if a petition is signed by 10 percent of the county’s registered voters, which he said is difficult to do.
Prenzler said PTELL is “not tax nirvana” and there are some arguments against it.
He explained that some are concerned that if PTELL is adopted, then taxing districts will increase taxes before it goes into effect to offset the tax cap. Another concern is that taxing bodies will raise taxes by the inflation rate whether they need it or not.
Others are concerned that PTELL will hurt the schools, Prenzler said.
“I don’t want to discourage anyone who is against it,” he said. “I just want it to be on the ballot for the people to vote on it.”
If PTELL was adopted, Prenzler said some districts in Madison County would be exempt. He explained that if a city or school district is split between counties, PTELL would only go into effect if all the applicable counties for that city have adopted it. For example, PTELL would not be enforced for Collinsville or Madison because part of the cities are in St. Clair County. Unless St. Clair County adopts it in the future, PTELL would not apply to those communities.
However, Collinsville is an exception in another way because it is a "home rule" city, as are Alton, Granite City and Edwardsville. Home rule cities, which would not be affected by PTELL, have populations of 25,000 or more. City councils in these cities may make tax increase decisions on their own.
Prenzler said some of the best school districts in Illinois are located in counties where PTELL has been adopted, so schools will not be left to suffer.
He said the benefit of PTELL is that “it brings discipline to the spending.”
During Monday’s special meeting, board members Moore, Chapman, Michael, Madison and Wesley spoke on the issue.
Moore said that while there is “never any perfect legislation,” PTELL is “better than nothing.”
“Overall in the long run, I do believe it will benefit the taxpayer,” he said. “In the short run, if there are taxing agencies that would raise the tax because they feel that PTELL makes it to the ballot and possibly could get passed, then I think there is a misuse of power there if they raise the taxes to top off the cash coffers because they know they won’t be able to raise taxes in the future.”
Moore said overtaxing for fear of not getting more down the road is akin to “stealing from the taxpayer.”
He added that he represents the voters and wants to give them the opportunity to decide.
Chapman said history shows that PTELL has immediately raised taxes in every county where it has been enacted.
“PTELL does not cap your property taxes, they still rise,” he said. “PTELL will not stop non-special taxing districts from rising. PTELL only limits the growth of property taxes under certain circumstances based upon an equation of property appreciation and inflation, which we do not even know if in the future that will apply to Madison County.”
He said PTELL could raise taxes “significantly” during a time of economic hardship due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s about giving the chance for taxpayers to vote on it? Really?” he added. “One wonders if this is a cleverly disguised misdirection play. Why? I observe most of those asking me to place it on the ballot aren’t even impacted by PTELL because they live in home ruled areas.”
Chapmen asked board members to consider 35,000 voters from home ruled districts who would not be impacted by PTELL but could still vote.
“The founding fathers started the American Revolution with the cry, ‘No taxation without representation,’” he said. “If 35,000 people from unimpacted areas vote, it’s more like, ‘Representation without taxation.’”
Michael, who is running for county auditor, said that when considering other unaffected cities that straddle counties in addition to home rule districts, it would be closer to 100,000 unaffected voters making a decision that doesn’t apply to them.
Michael raised concerns over the board’s lack of basic understanding of PTELL. He said he previously asked several questions that either produced no answers or mixed answers.
“So if we don’t have a basic understanding of what it does, how can we responsibly tell people to go vote on it?” he asked.
He agreed with forming a committee to research PTELL and learn more about it.
“It might be the greatest thing in the world, and then I’ll vote on it,” he said. “But how can I vote for something if we don’t understand what exactly it does?”
Madison supported putting PTELL on the ballot for voters to decide, but said they should be aware that it would raise taxes. He said PTELL might be a benefit in the future, but said taxes would spike the first year and would continue to rise for a few years before they finally slowed down.
“The voters need to be aware, their taxes are going to go up before it gets better,” he said.
“We’re probably going to pay for this one way or another,” he added, “whether we pay it now or we pay it later.”
He said property taxes in Madison County have been “the number one issue … for as long as I’ve been on the board.”
Madison said PTELL should be decided by the voters. However, he stressed that voters would need to be well educated on the law. He said he was worried that taxpayers would be “misled into voting for something that may raise their taxes and not realize it.”
Before moving to postpone the discussion, Wesley noted that a study by the Department of Revenue shows that Southern Illinois counties with PTELL laws “experienced a 260 percent markup in their tax bill” from the 1990s to about 2017.
Wesley said some of his constituents cannot afford such a significant spike in property taxes.
He questioned why PTELL wasn’t raised again after it was tabled in 2018.
“If it’s important enough to go on the ballot in November, it’s important enough to go on the ballot this spring,” Wesley said.