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Michael Bond for State Senate

STATE SENATE HOPEFULLS TALK TAX REDUCTIONS
Candidates differ on how to lighten property owners load; one favors more businesses, the other wants to change school funding

by Russel Lissau
Daily Herald Staff Writer

Both candidates for the 31st District state Senate seat say high property taxes are the districts biggest complaint, but they offered very different solutions for the problem.

Democrat Michael Bond wants to see more high-tech and pharmaceutical businesses come to Lake County to shift some of the burden off homeowners.

Republican Suzanne Simpson believes the state could help lower residential tax bills by providing more money for special-education programs that are generally financed by local schools' property tax-revenue.

The contenders shared their opinions about taxes and other issues in separate interviews this week at Daily Heralds Libertyville bureau.

Bond, 36, of Grayslake, works at All state Insurance Co. and is a woodland Elementary District 50 board member. Simpson, 52, of the Grayslake area, is Warren Townships supervisor and a former state representative.

The 31st District includes nearly all of northern Lake County. The seat carries a 4-year term.

Bond said Libertyville Townships-based Abbott Laboratories and Deerfield's' Baxter International could be the foundation for a high-tech "corridor" in Lake County. Such businesses would pay property taxes too, taking some of the responsibility from homeowners, he said.

"We don't need two biotech companies out here. We need 12," he said. Local governments could encourage such businesses to move here by offering financial incentives, Bond said.

Simpson said increasing the money special-education programs get from the state could lessen homeowner’s property tax bills. Such programs are now funded by the state "at 1980 levels" even though mandatory programs are costlier than they were decades ago, she said. "One child" (with special needs) can throw off a school districts burden," Simpson said. "The state can't pass demands onto other units of government unless they’re willing to fund "them” fully." Making the state fully finance these programs would reduce the need for school officials to put tax-related referendums on the ballot, Simpson said. She said she would support such legislation.

"In a perfect world, that would be the first piece of legislation that I would go after," she said.

Source:
Daily Herald September 28, 2006


	© 2006, Michael Bond for Illinois State Senate