Taxpayers United of America (TUA) worked with taxpayers in Warren Township Dist. 121 to help them defeat a property tax increase referendum on April 6, 2021. However, the greedy bureaucrats on the school board have not given up. They decided to place another property tax increase referendum on the June 28, 2022 ballot.
On August 27, 2021, the Board of Education approved placing a 60-cent operating rate increase question on the 2022 ballot.
In opposing the April 6, 2021 referendum, TUA president Jim Tobin stated that “Warren TWP HSD 121 (WTHS) wants to raises taxes during a pandemic! The school district has placed on the April 6th ballot a referendum to increase the limiting rate on property taxes, effectively raising property taxes by $7.6 million!”
“Illinois is still locked down, schools aren’t even fully open, yet the career tax-raisers at WTHS want taxpayers to fork over another $7.6 million. This is really hitting the taxpayers when they’re down.”
Tobin pointed out to taxpayers that it’s really the bureaucrats and teachers who profit from these property tax hikes, not the students. “All of the top 15 annual salaries in WTHS are greater than $136,000, and, when they retire, each of these teachers will collect millions from the Teachers Retirement System (TRS). It’s unconscionable that government school administrators would expect taxpayers to subsidize these overpaid teachers with more of their hard-earned money.”
Lake County’s average annual property tax of $6,285 is the highest of all Illinois counties. It ranks 18th out of 3,143 counties for property taxes as a percentage of annual income: 6.76%.
Tobin had a suggestion for the school board: “WTHS needs to sell the 100-acre parcel that they purchased in 2008 for $8 million. Proceeds from the sale would go a long way to protect the programs that the government school bureaucrats are threatening to drop if the referendum fails. They have threatened to risk students’ ability to qualify for colleges, scholarships, and just to succeed in life.”
“They also threaten to go to a seven-period day, but I’m sure teachers and staff would not consent to a 12.5% pay-cut,” said Tobin. “It’s time to freeze teachers’ salaries.”
