League of Women Voters of Illinois^®

The League of Women Voters of Illinois supports and urges the General Assembly to enact tax reform legislation this session. We strongly support HB750/SB2288 which provides a comprehensive plan to address the needs of the State for equitable, sustainable and consistent revenues to fund schools and other important social programs that have been shortchanged for the past several years. The League also supports a progressive income tax, a broad based sales tax and the use of the property tax for only PARTIALLY funding education and local government services.

The current system of taxation fails to meet these criteria and fails to provide adequate revenues for education and other vital state services. These discussions have been going on for far too many years and it is time for our elected legislators to act in the name of good government and on behalf of all people of Illinois – especially the children who will inherit the debts that have been amassed due to the tax structural deficit.

• All children in Illinois deserve a high-quality education, regardless of where they live. But Illinois’ property-tax dependent school funding system shortchanges schools, burdens property taxpayers, and punishes students in poor communities.

• Illinois ranks 47th in the nation in the level of state support for education, putting pressure on local communities to keep increasing property taxes at the expense of economic development, senior citizens, and housing for working families.

• The gap in academic achievement between students in property-rich and property-poor communities is growing rapidly and is one of the highest in the country. This is not surprising, since the school funding gap between rich and poorer communities is the widest in the entire nation.

• Most urban, suburban, and rural districts are being forced to make tough decisions that compromise the quality of education they can provide to their students. Due to funding shortages, many schools are increasing class sizes, laying off teachers, cutting important programs such as teacher training, and relying on outdated textbooks and equipment. Please add any additional staff or program cuts that have affected schools in your community.

• Elected officials in Illinois need to make reforming school funding and quality and delivering property tax relief their top priority this year! We can’t afford to lose another generation of bright young students to our broken school funding system.
The League of Women Voters of Illinois supports and urges the General Assembly to enact tax reform legislation this session. We strongly support HB750/SB2288 which provides a comprehensive plan to address the needs of the State for equitable, sustainable and consistent revenues to fund schools and other important social programs that have been shortchanged for the past several years.