North Cook News

Matt Podgorski, Republican committeeman of the 39th Ward, said he thinks the proposed two-year property tax freeze should be viewed as the first step toward "real reform."

“A property tax freeze is a good, temporary interim step toward real property tax reform,” Podgorski told the North Cook News. “But real reform can only be achieved with a hard 1 percent property tax cap for residential property and 2 percent for commercial and farmland.”

In its current House-amended form, Senate Bill 851 would establish a two-year property tax freeze for Cook, Lake, McHenry, Kane, DuPage and Will counties. All other counties would be subject to referendums asking whether a property tax freeze should be imposed for 2018 and 2019 or "or whether to have all local governments within the county subject to a property tax freeze for 2018 and 2019 AND then subject to the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law (PTELL) for levy year 2020 and thereafter," according to a Township Officials of Illinois legislative alert.

Matt Podgorski

“The concept of township governments are a bit outdated in my humble opinion,” Podgorski said of the state’s roughly 7,000 units of government. “Holding everything else equal, I would say we need less units of government, not more.”

Podgorski argued that the state needs to streamline regulation and curb what he considers over-taxation.

“The state of Illinois needs to reign in excessive taxing and regulation that is happening at the local levels,” Podgorski said. “Most government agencies will fight for one thing, more. More money, more people, more laws, more regulations. It is the nature of bureaucracies. Government needs to live within its means and start treating the money like it’s their own rather than someone else's.”

In the meantime, Podgorski said voters should remain abreast of all the developments and how they may come to affect their bottom line.

“The surest way to make housing more affordable, to help local economies grow, and to encourage business to expand and hire to is to take less of people's money in the form of property taxes,” he said. “Create a level of certainty to where people and businesses can make plans and stick to them.”