LOYAL. LOCAL. COMPLETE.
The Edgar County Board held a Truth in Taxation hearing on Wednesday, Nov. 5, before its regularly scheduled board meeting. The 8:45 a.m. hearing drew a large crowd of residents with questions and frustrations following a recently published tax increase notice and a closing clause that stated “the estimated total property taxes to be levied for 2025, payable in 2026, are $5,443,000. This represents an increase of more than 105 percent over the previous year.”
As the meeting began, board Chairman Jeff Voigt was quick to address what he described as “misconceptions” surrounding the notice.
“The template that the state gives us makes it look like we're increasing taxes by over 100 percent, and that's not correct,” he said.
Voigt explained that, according to state law, any increase above five percent requires a public hearing and that the state identifies the process as “ a 105 percent.”
“Taxes are not double,” he emphasized.
The chairman further explained that the current levy called for a 7.34 percent increase, raising last year’s levy from $5,071,000 to about $5.44 million.
Voigt explained the levy includes multiple agencies beyond the county itself, such as the highway department, bridge fund, Community Health Fund, ambulance services and the Illinois Extension office.
“(The levy) is not just the county tax,” Voigt said. “It's other agencies … it's an all-encompassing levy and I think the template that the state gives us to use is kind of misleading.”
After clarifying the formats the board is required to use by the state and reiterating the change in percentage, Voigt shared that, following reviews of the budget and input from community members prior to the hearing, the board now plans to further reduce the levy to “well below five percent.”
To do that, he said, the board cut expenses by forgoing a new sheriff’s vehicle, reducing special funds and accepting reductions to pension plans. Because of the reduction, Voigt shared that, by law, the board was no longer required to hold the early morning hearing and "could have canceled it."
"But we did not want to do that," he said.
Instead, the board elected to continue with the hearing and allow residents to have the platform to ask their questions and express any concerns they had. Following the explanation, the chairman then opened the floor to the many visitors in the courtroom for both questions and statements.
Dozens of questions from constituents followed.
Among the many topics discussed, Edgar County residents continually raised concerns about IMFR retirement funds, the paving of township roads, park projects, the county’s new jail, and property taxes, as well as issues such as mental health support and previously passed programs.
Some citizens were quick to call out the board for what they believed were hidden meetings and “lack of transparency,” including several requests that meeting times be transitioned to evenings and that meeting information be “better publicized.”
“We discuss (all of this) at open meetings. We don't have any secret meetings, and we start working on this (budget) in August and September,” Voigt said. He and several other board members were quick to point residents to the county’s official website, where all meeting times, minutes and recordings of meetings are housed.
When asked how the county had found itself in “such a predicament with such high tax rates,” the chairman promptly corrected the questioner.
“We’re not in a predicament,” he said. “It’s just like your household; our insurance has gone up. Over the last two years, our liability insurance has gone up $150,000 … our health insurance has gone up like $60,000 to $65,000 plans.”
“Yes, we have to solve some problems here, now and continually, but until the state somehow addresses how they do property taxes, we've been fighting … they shouldn't be the basis on which the services that the state demands that we offer you that we're mandated,” Voigt said. “We've got two funds that we get from the state, and they've cut several $100,000 a year from us. So we've got to come up with some way to still operate and do that. I mean, we've got trouble, just like your household has trouble.”
When asked by a concerned citizen what the board’s five-year outlook was, Voigt grimly responded that it “is not optimistic.”
“All of our expenses are the same as what you have running a business,” he said. “Our utility bill is almost doubled this year … business, home, wherever you're at, we have all got bills.”
The discussion, which was originally planned to last only 15 minutes, continued until 9:30 and was then recessed until 11:30, allowing board members to address the concerns of area residents.
When given the opportunity to address the room during the first session of the hearing, board member Lisa Ellis reminded the citizens present that several items that collected funds from taxpayers were also voted on by taxpayers.
“I want to point out that some of the levies on here, the county, maybe not you individually, but the county, voted to have these services,” she said, pointing to community mental health, the County Board of Health, the Extension Education from the University of Illinois and the ambulance services as examples.
“These were passed by you, as an agent, as an organization, as a county. If you don't want those or you want those levies decreased, then that's a process, and that could happen, but that's on the county to determine what you want,” she said.
Ellis also pointed to several other line items on an individual tax bill that are from other taxing agencies, and not from the county. Those examples included school districts, townships and community colleges.
“Not that any of those are bad or evil, but those are all the combination of why all of our tax bills are high,” Ellis explained. “If you look at the whole thing, there are a lot of factors that come into play on why our taxes are so high, but you all play a role, or can play a role … yes, we work on this all year, and you know, we're all taxpayers too, so we don't take this lightly, and we're not pouring it on anyone else. We live it too.”
The pushback to the board members’ explanation delved further into the process of eliminating current community programs that receive the majority of their funding from the county.
“You don’t have to keep these programs and keep spending money on them. If you cannot afford them, then get rid of them,” one citizen said.
“We as a county board cannot,” Ellis explained. “Those were voted in, and they have to be voted out.”
Another hot topic discussed in the meeting revolved around the county’s new safety center and a one percent safety tax.
“How is the jail being paid right now?” a Chrisman resident asked. “I'm being told by someone that we're paying, that the taxes are paying, even though we were told it wasn't … I want to know, how is it being all of a sudden now we have these raises of taxes? Our Chrisman fire or police department can't even get body cameras, but yet we have all this money that you guys are taking.”
“I just want to know where our taxes actually go, not the bull crap answers that you're going to give me,” she added. “I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just saying I'm so over this, and finally, you have people that are tired of it and are showing up for once to a meeting.”
In response, Voigt shared that the one percent sales tax, commonly referred to as the safety tax, which was previously approved by county residents, is the source of funds for the jail.
Board member Dan Brunner added an additional explanation of the safety tax, clarifying that “it's not really tax money as such.”
“The people in Edgar County actually passed that,” Brunner said. “It's a one percent sales tax on things that you buy and store and has nothing to do with property tax … it's on stuff that you buy. That's what paying for the jail is. It's over a 20 or 30-year period. But you voted on it.”
The citizen was quick to question the honesty of Voigt and the board, asking once again if they were being truthful in their answer.
“I'm going to have to take you for your word on that, because I have no idea if you're telling the truth,” she said, adding her emphatic belief that the entire board should be replaced.
When the citizen began a conversation surrounding the paving of roads and asking questions about where the money was “to replace potholes,” Voigt was quick to clarify the topics of discussion for the hearing.
“I want to make sure you know that none of what we're talking about on the levy deals with the jail, or the townships or the city. Those are separate issues,” he said. “If you've got problems within Chrisman or Paris or Hume, or wherever you're at, those issues are not part and parcel of the highway, County Highway Department. The County Highway Department takes care of county roads, and as asked, assists the townships.”
Further discussion among those gathered debated city issues, grocery taxes and school board issues before a representative from Kansas took an opportunity to speak.
“Every single public body, by law, can raise your taxes up to five percent, without any input from you whatsoever, and every lawyer for these units of government, fire departments, library districts, school districts, townships, municipalities, every stinking lawyer says we need to do that to keep up with inflation,” Kirk Allen said. “You have to look at every unit of government and go to those meetings and ask an important question, ‘Why are we raising the taxes? Is it because we can, or is it because we need to?’”
Allen, who serves as the fire chief in Kansas, continued to say that under his guidance, Kansas has not raised its levy “in 20 years.”
“We make sure that we're within our budget, and we make sure that we are proven frugal with our money,” he explained.
“The one percent tax for the jail, with all due respect to law enforcement, love you guys, when that passed, we were told that was a safety tax. It would affect all safety units in the county. I'm a fire department. Run an ambulance. We've not seen a penny. Not a single penny has any others,” Allen said. “It's all gone to the sheriff's office. And no offense to the sheriff. I don't know if he's here or not, but doggone it, we were told when that tax passed, it would benefit all the emergency service agencies in this county. That's not true, and that's a personal one for me, because we were assured everybody was going to benefit from that.”
“I'm glad you're all here. I really am. But you're going to find that if you don't go to your school boards and start really putting eyes to paper, you need to go to your township meetings, your fire protection district meetings, your library meetings. There are so many meetings, it's unheard of,” Allen added. “People are angry. I'm angry. I'm angry at our township and I can talk all day about that, because we've fought for years to keep those taxes down. You have to come to meetings, and you have to put eyeballs on it. You have to ask good, solid questions.”
Another speaker who shared their opinion identified himself as “Mike, the owner and operator of Southfork Homestead.”
“This past October, we had 27,000 people come to Edgar County for our place, but 99 percent of these people here have never stepped foot on the property,” he said. “Our problem is, just like the county, as a small business, our rates and our costs have skyrocketed … Our property taxes for the homestead has increased every year for 10 years. As a seasonal business, right now a small business, just property taxes, $1,000 every weekend … we have to reel way back on what we do, we don't have the luxury of retirement or even increases in pensions or anything. We keep pulling it back to what we can deal with. I think as a county and as a community, everybody needs to reel back any program that they can, cutting back the bare bones, because the future is grim.”
His sentiments were quickly echoed by nearly everyone gathered in the room, including members of the board.
“We can't continue this,” Scott Meyers, another concerned citizen, added. “Your constituents are telling you that we cannot absorb any more taxes … with all the things that we're doing that are costing us additional tax money, at what point can we say ‘We're going to negate these items because we're budgeting this, so we're going to cut these programs. These are the programs we're going to put out for vote that we're no longer going to do.’ And when can that happen? And when can the residents of Edgar County have a say in what we support and which ones we don't? Everybody's got a budget.”
“If we can't afford it anymore, we've got to choose at some point. I can't do this. I do it every day at home, and I make decent money,” Meyers added.
Ellis asked the members of the community in the room to remember that “every elected official is responsible for their budget,” and that “it's a negotiation, and we hope everybody plays nice.”
“I'm not saying any of them go hog wild or do things that aren't appropriate, but again, you elect them, and you can have those conversations,” Ellis said. “The highway department tax, the federal government makes it a requirement that we max the levy. If we don't max that Levy, then we can't do bridges, and there are how many bridges tune process right now? Two bridges are in my district, my Township, they are getting replaced with 100 percent federal funds.”
“It seems crazy, but the hoops we have to jump through if we don't max that particular Levy, we can't get federal funds. If we can't get federal funds, we can't do any road repairs,” she added. “It is obscene how much it costs to do any of those things. If we don't max that, you don't talk about the potholes.”
Ellis also noted that the county is constantly monitoring the health of bridges and their scheduled replacements.
“It's just like at home, if you don't replace them pretty soon, you've got a lot that need replaced all the same time,” she explained. “Just to realize, again, we're under some pretty tight restraints on what we do and do not have the ability to change. That's not to say that we shouldn't always be trying to change any further than we are. There are a lot of things we'd love to do around here.”
Other changes outside of the board’s control were discussed by board member Karl Farnham.
“(Sometimes) it’s state mandated, you know, like at the jail, we used to always just have one jailer. They mandated we have two. So we went from four employees to nine employees, and now they're in the process of working with 911, changing the rules that possibly make it mandatory that we have to have two people on duty,” he said. “Where's that money come from? They make it mandatory for us, but we don't have any money to pay for it.”
When the hearing resumed at 11:30 a.m., a significantly smaller number of citizens gathered to continue the discussion. Among the conversations held in the meeting’s continuation were several surrounding the mental health programs supported by the county board.
“I just don't feel like spending my tax dollars on mental health is something I want going on, especially in the county. That's one thing I think we could we should cut right there, if anything, we're putting people into the system, like mentally it's not helping. Mental health is not helping,” Jacob Ducharme said. “We're just dumping money into a problem that is really everybody just has bad days.”
“We're spending money on this thing that's acting as a light bulb, attracting insects to flow to a place where they think it might be more conducive for them to live. Aren't we actually putting bait out there for those who are struggling? You know, I would say it's like putting gambling machines and all in every place in town,” Ducharme said. “All this talk about mental health is just making us weaker. Everybody sits there thinking, ‘Oh, I had a bad day. I'm diagnosable, and that's a problem with me.’ I feel like we're exacerbating the issue by spending money and making awareness about problems that ain't actually there.”
In response, Ellis shared her involvement with the 708 board and work with HRC, the organization that directly benefits from the county allotment to “mental health.”
“HRC has mental health, substance abuse and adult special needs, so there are three different arms of it,” she said. “If the county residents don't feel like there should be a 708 line, then again, like I said earlier, that's up to you all to start that process. We didn’t start it and we can’t not levy it.”
Newly appointed county board member Samantha McCarty also chimed in on the issue, noting that Edgar County is seeing a substantial rise in pediatric mental health issues.
“There are children that start from a very young age having mental health disorders based on the environment that they're in, and they may not be using drugs, but maybe someone in their home is …that's why they call it co-occurring disorder,” McCarty explained. “We are seeing a rise in pediatric mental health disorders based off of abuse, neglect, poor living conditions and those poor living conditions are due to adults in the home being on drugs.”
“We try to do our part and play a responsible role with your money,” Ellis reiterated.
Other community members, like Justin Sunkle, were quick to ask county board members what they could do to help.
“What can we as community members do to help? Is there a place that we can donate money? How do we help with this?” Sunkle asked. “Because obviously the tax is a tax issue, but why can't more of us in the community help out?”
McCarty, Ellis and Voigt quickly referred the group to multiple community organizations where they could contribute time and money, and find resources, noting that none of them are funded by the county board or had anything to do with the truth in taxation hearing unfolding.
Other encouragement from Voigt requested that community members attend meetings and become more actively involved in understanding what is happening within the county and how they can effect change.
“There has to be public input, and that the public has to be knowledgeable and want to come up with solutions and not problems,” McCarty said. “Talk things over with your constituents and bring it back to your representative. Bring it to the board. Come to a board meeting. All of those line items on the budget, for years they have been put out on the county's website for years. Go through it, print it, look at it.”
“I do hear what you're saying and I validate what you're saying,” McCarty added. “Nobody wants to pay more taxes, myself included. But also, how do we look at our sheriff's department and say which dispatcher isn't going to have a job tomorrow, or which corrections officer isn't going to have a job tomorrow? … Those are really hard questions to have, and I think we are at a point to have really hard questions, because we're having a really hard question about a potential tax increase, but it’s not a one-sided conversation.”
A lengthy dissertation from Myers followed, where he addressed his previous bid for a seat on the county board, farm ground, school boards and his personal experience with his land and county assessments.
“We don't understand the rules, and we don't understand why the rules are made the way that they are. And we're getting to the point, and I'm speaking for the community when I say this, because I've talked to several people about it, where the money's going, and we want to know what we're paying for,” Myers said. “We, without understanding what you're doing, we're all assuming that you're doing something wrong, because we want more money, and that's the point of it, I think the community wants a voice of explanation.”
“When you're talking to those 100 people, I would encourage them to look at that tax bill, and every one of those is a taxing entity,” McCarty responded. “All of the people who showed up here this morning. I hope that they are going to those boards and asking, ‘Are these people being fiduciarily’ responsible?’ The county is just one taxing entity, and it's good to get that knowledge.”
August Griffin, Edgar County's clerk and recorder, also stepped in to share an explanation of the process.
“When you receive your tax bill from the county treasurer, it's not the county treasurer or the county board that sets all those letters. Each school district submits a levy to my office, and a levy is just a request for taxpayer funds,” he explained. “The fire protection districts, the villages, all kinds of different taxing bodies, they submit that the county board has nothing to do with that. We input that into our tax program. It spits out a tax bill. The Treasurer then emails out your tax bill. I think people misunderstand that that's not the treasurer of the county board that makes all of that up; they have nothing to do with it, only a small portion of the tax bill.”
“We operate as a team. Even though some of us are elected, some of us aren't,” Voigt added. “We all know we're in it together, and we just try to work it out the best we can.”
He again suggested anyone with additional questions visit the county’s website (www.edgarcountyillinois.com) to view the complete budget, minutes, agendas and a schedule of past and future meetings. He also invited any and all interested individuals to “please, attend the meetings and share your voice. They are all open meetings.”