December 14, 2010
The spirit and intent of the Truth in Taxation law requires local government bodies to hold a public hearing and to publish a legal notice with the property tax amount they received in the current year and the amount they are requesting to be paid the following year if the requested increase is 5% or higher.
Most area taxing bodies do follow the spirit and intent of the law thereby giving an accurate portrayal of what they are doing. Examples are the City of Kankakee, Kankakee School District 111, Kankakee Community College, Bradley /Bourbonnais school districts and villages. All of these taxing bodies have TIF districts within their borders. They could choose to take liberties with the spirit and intent of the law by inflating the dollar amount they received in the current year with dollars they were unable to collect from TIF districts which would make their requested increase look smaller but they don’t. Some taxing bodies with TIF districts however do, examples are the County of Kankakee, Village of Manteno, Manteno School District, Bourbonnais Fire District, Bourbonnais Township Park District; Kankakee Valley Park District and Bradley Library.
Some taxing bodies have no TIF districts within there boundaries and therefore have no opportunity to do anything other then follow the spirit and intent of the Truth in Taxation law. An example is the St. George School District.
The bottom line is when reading property tax Truth in Taxation legal notices in the local papers, you have to be careful about believing what you are reading. It depends on which taxing body the notice is about. The same goes for newspaper articles on property tax increases.