Help for struggling McHenry County taxpayers

MCHENRY COUNTY – As the McHenry County Board works toward approving its 2021 budget and levy, households and small businesses pummeled by COVID-19 continue finding a sympathetic friend in McHenry County government.

McHenry County Board Chairman Jack Franks says, “McHenry County residents were struggling under a heavy burden long before COVID-19 . They’re being hammered now.”

Franks, a Marengo resident, is reminding taxpayers of the fiscal efforts by the board in reducing county government’s tax levy for three consecutive years.  With COVID-19 hurting taxpayers, Franks says the combination of cost reduction and outside-the-box thinking are resulting in real tax savings that turned prior years’ reductions into permanent cuts for fiscal 2020, saving at least $28 million over the three-year period had the levy remained at its 2016 amount.

Mike Skala, chairman of the Finance and Audit Committee of the McHenry County Board, sees the latest efforts as a positive sign.

“Any time that we have the ability to increase property taxes and we choose not to, then the taxpayers are winning because they are not having to pay as much in taxes as they theoretically could.”

Skala of Huntley notes that the county has had a lot of pressures on its budget because of COVID not bringing in the revenue.

“It has nothing to do with the expense side…we are actually cutting expenses, but our revenues have dropped off about 7-to-8 percent from where they were because of COVID,” Skala said.

The proposed 2021 levy is almost $10 million less than the $79.4 million the county levied in 2016 and at $69,672,249 is more than $4 million less than the county could levy under the law. The budget year starts on December 1 but the budget still has stops along the way for review by the finance committee and then the full board before the public’s 30-day review and finally a vote in November by the full county board.