Pritzker Pushes Back on Calls for Property Tax Reform
Gov. JB Pritzker at a news conference in 2025. (Photo: Chicago Tribune)
Governor JB Pritzker Monday pushed back on calls for property tax reform, claiming Republican critics are “quite confused” and that increases in state funding to schools in recent years should be reducing local property tax burdens.
At an unrelated news conference, Pritzker was asked if proposed tax increases on higher income Illinoisans, like a “millionaires surcharge” backed by Speaker Chris Welch or a renewed push for a graduated income tax, like the ballot question that failed in 2020, would be used to reduce the property tax burden on homeowners and businesses.
“Well, I want to remind you that property taxes are not determined by the state of Illinois, but rather by local governments,” he said. Local units of government, including school boards, park boards, library boards, municipalities, et cetera. So I think people sometimes get confused.”
Pritzker blamed previous lawmakers and governors for failing to adequately fund schools, which led to an overreliance on property taxes.
“The reason that Illinois has had such high property taxes historically is because the state government has gotten out of the business of funding schools. It had anyway, before I became Governor,” Pritzker said. “When I became Governor, we, I think, had the lowest percentage of education funding coming from the state of any state in the United States. We were the lowest. One of the purposes of that is to alleviate the burden on local governments, on local school boards, and on people who are paying property taxes locally.”
But, Pritzker blamed local school boards for failing to reduce property taxes after increased state funding.
“You know what? School boards didn’t take the hint,” he said. “And so they’ve continued to ratchet up property taxes over and over and over again. And that has led to a continued very high property tax burden on homeowners across the state.”
Pritzker also dinged Republican critics who say the state should be addressing reforms to reduce the burden on homeowners, essentially claiming reforms aren’t an issue for the General Assembly.
“I know the Republican Party in Illinois is quite confused and thinks that this is a state issue when it is actually a local issue,” he said.
Pritzker said increased income taxes on wealthy individuals could reduce the property tax burden around the state, to a point.
There’s about, as I understand, about $35 or $37 billion of local property taxes that gets paid. Whatever gets proposed here probably is not going to entirely be dedicated to property [tax relief]. But even if it were and it was a couple billion dollars, you’re still talking about $37 billion of property taxes being alleviated by a couple of billion dollars of state money,” Pritzker said. “So it takes a lot of things, just like in dealing with pensions, you have to go at it from 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 angles in order to try to reduce the burden of local property taxes.”
But, Pritzker tried to reduce expectations for significant property tax reductions in the state anytime soon.
“Look, at this point, if we could just keep property taxes from going up, that would be a huge benefit to people across the state,” he said. “Instead, every year it seems property taxes just go up and up and up, and we’ve got to deal with that problem. And I don’t think it’s just a millionaire’s tax. If that were to happen that would be the [whole] answer. It requires local governments, local schools, to take into account that they are getting, at least under my administration, $2.4 billion more every year in school funding from the state already. And that should, at least in part, provide some impetus for for keeping property taxes from going up.”
