The Illinois legislature has gone back and dotted the “i” of what already seemed like a perfectly intelligible law spelling out how tax increase referendums were to be calculated as the wording of those referendums was set by local government bodies.
In March 2011, acting on a tip from a reader, Wednesday Journal reported that the property tax referendum put forward by District 97 public elementary schools badly understated the measure’s cost to taxpayers. At the paper’s request, Oak Park Township Assessor Ali ElSaffar took a look and came to the same conclusion. The school board made the odd argument that they agreed the ballot question was wrong but they had approved the wording on the explicit advice of their law firm. Further, the board proved they intended to campaign on the higher and accurate cost.
State Sen. Don Harmon, the Oak Parker who had proposed the initial legislation as a step toward transparent government, expressed amazement that lawyers could misinterpret the law. Now Harmon and ElSaffar report the usually split legislature has unanimously OK’d, and the governor has signed, a lawyer-proof version of the law that should prevent a repeat of this unnecessary mess.