Jerry R. McDonald

“When I moved to Illinois in 2012, my first property tax bill was definitely sticker shock. The amount was about two and half times the amount I had been paying in central Kentucky. It was very disconcerting.”

“I understand the need in Illinois, the state doesn’t underwrite education to the extent that other states do, so the burden falls locally. While I’m all for education and I feel that it should be well funded, what we pay in property taxes is bordering on exorbitant.”

“In my opinion, the education system here is like the old joke about central American armies, there are a lot of officers and very few privates. It appears that we have more people telling teachers how to teach than we have teachers teaching.”

“The state’s finances are a mess. … The backlog of the pension fund is draining the state and the solution … is long term and complicated.”

“Since 2012, we’ve owned two homes in Springfield. We moved into our present home, currently valued at around $260,000, in 2014. In that time, our property taxes have increased, at a rough guess, by about 15%.”

“People are voting with their feet, leaving Illinois every day and high property taxes are a big part of it. I’m 74 and when my wife retires in a few years, we’ll be joining the exodus and moving south, likely to South Carolina.”

“What we pay in property taxes here in Illinois, will easily cover property taxes on a comparable house there for four or five years.”

Jerry R. McDonald
Retired
Springfield, Illinois