North Cook News

Jillian Bernas has returned home after living abroad for several years to find that home has changed -- surprised to find her city, Schaumburg, a little empty.

“I had lived abroad for about five years, and I loved every moment of it and where I lived -- but it was too far from home,” Bernas recently told North Cook News. “I got back and I started looking for job opportunities, and I just wasn’t finding a whole lot of opportunity. I felt like I was a very qualified individual. I also saw that people were leaving the state. Actually, none of my high school friends whom I was close with live in Schaumburg anymore. And a lot of them left the state. I also saw other people leaving the state.”

This discovery prompted her to investigate. What she found were policies she believes to be ineffective.

“As I got more and more involved and settled at home, I just saw that there are a lot of bad policies that have been in place over the past couple of years and many politicians that are just doing things for their own gain,” she said. “I think that is kind of why we are having the problems we are having.”

Among such problems, Bernas noted, are burdensome mandates by the state and a lack of support to local municipal governments.

“I work on the board of the Schaumburg library, and so with the municipal government, there are various things that you have to provide at your establishment or school or library, and there are various regulations that you have to definitely follow,” she said. “And so every time the state passes a mandate and there is no financial support behind that, it falls on the local municipal government to come up with that fund. And that’s when they have to go to the taxpayers.”

She elaborated, stating that while some mandates are good, there are others that have placed an unfair burden on the citizens and the communities.

“I’m seeing that on some instances, the mandates are very good and then, sometimes, the mandate just adds additional costs to our local tax payers,” Bernas said. “And it’s very hard for family to sometimes to absorb those shocks. If they are on a fixed income, especially our families that are retired or families that have young children … it’s really hard for them to handle it when their property taxes go up.”

Fixing policies to help families and municipalities, create jobs, invigorate the state and the local communities comprise some of the platform on which Bernas is running. She noted a problem with the high tax rates that supposedly plague Illinois: she believes the taxes are not helping the people.

“I don’t know what value we are getting for it,” Bernas said. “We see that our infrastructure is crumbling. We are educating our students, but right now fourth graders in the state of Illinois, two-thirds of them aren’t reading at grade level … If people are not getting value for their taxes, it is frustrating.”

When she was celebrating Small Business Week last week, she was astonished that legislators were proposing a change from a flat rate tax to a graduated tax system, which she claimed would hurt small businesses.

“Given that small businesses employ about 50 percent of our Illinois workers, I am amazed that politicians would even consider burdening them even more with taxes in order to protect the status quo and their own power,” she said in a press release. “I am going to Springfield to protect small businesses and ensure that families have access to job opportunities, not to support job-killing tax hikes being pushed by my opponent (Rep. Michelle Mussman) and her leadership.”

Bernas concluded by saying Illinois needs to create opportunities for its people -- not scare them away.

“Instead of identifying solutions to the problems our state faces, Rep. Lou Lang and Springfield insiders look for ways to further tax families and businesses,” she said in the release. “We need new leadership in Springfield that keeps its promises and prioritizes serving those in need. One way to help those in need is to make sure opportunities exist for individuals to work and support their families through Illinois small businesses that employ 50 percent of our state’s workers.”