![]() Quite a few of those departing would be the high-earners we need to prop up the tax base. Yet another big property tax jump would surely chase some - maybe many - people out of the city, worsening the population drop that already gets Chicago a lot of bad press. And they’re not all making twice as much money. In the affluent parts of the city, it’s not unusual for property owners to owe double what they paid a decade ago. If all of this were paid out of property taxes, the average city tax bill would jump roughly 20% above 2018 levels, plus more each year after.Ĭhicago property tax bills already have gone up plenty - 13% due to Rahm’s 2015 tax increase and 11% more in the north and central parts of the city due to the 2018 reassessment. ![]() They were narrowly drawn - mainly they modified a steep annual cost-of-living increase. The amendments there applied only to certain types of employees - public safety officers and some others. That state had equally strict language in its constitution and has now amended it twice.īut what happened in Arizona offers no support for the belief that a sweeping rollback of pension benefits is possible in Illinois. What’s been done in Arizona is sometimes cited. Some civic groups, editorial writers and others have urged amending the pension clause to give public officials more latitude to modify benefits. The Illinois constitution has an unusually strict pension clause that says state and local government pension benefits “shall not be diminished or impaired.” The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled multiple times that this provision confers an absolute right: The state can’t reduce pension benefits no matter how dire its financial predicament. Changing the Illinois constitution won’t save us As for the CTA and the others, who knows? They’re still funded using outdated, often grossly inadequate formulas - the Chicago Park District’s pension fund will be insolvent by 2027.
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