The Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), on behalf of its Cook County affiliates, including the Chicago Teachers Union, has sued Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas in an effort to force the mailing of property tax bills so schools receive funding sooner than currently anticipated. Let me be clear: Cook County deserves plenty of criticism for its disastrous rollout of the new property tax system. The project has ballooned to roughly $63 million — more than double its original budget — and was not completed on time. In February, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle declared it was “a lock” that the 2026 second-installment tax bills would be mailed on time. That promise, like so many others surrounding this project, proved false. The level of mismanagement has been extraordinary.
Delayed property tax bills create real hardship for schools, libraries, municipalities and other local governments that rely on those revenues to operate. When tax collections are delayed, those entities must either reduce services or borrow money to bridge the gap. Ultimately, local residents pay the price. There is no question that Chicago Public Schools and other districts are feeling the effects of these delays. But the IFT’s lawsuit against the county treasurer is little more than a performative stunt. A court cannot compel the treasurer to mail tax bills that are not yet ready. Sending inaccurate or incomplete bills would only compound an already significant problem. One can’t help but wonder how the IFT or the CTU would respond if someone sued them to force better educational outcomes in the classroom as certainly there is room for improvement there. They would rightly argue that litigation cannot magically produce results where the underlying work has not been completed. The IFT would better serve its members, students and taxpayers by focusing on its core mission: improving education and supporting teachers, rather than pursuing lawsuits that generate headlines but offer no practical solution to Cook County’s failures.
— Dean Gerber, Chicago
Property taxes
As John McClane said in the movie “Die Hard” “Welcome to the party pal”.
The Tribune Editorial Board has recently shown an interest in the exorbitant property taxes that homeowners pay, first questioning the $840 million proposal by High School District 214 and now this editorial (“llinoisans hate high property taxes. So why do we keep voting for them?” July 22).
The title of the editorial is misleading. It should read: Illinois homeowners hate high property taxes. So why do they keep getting out voted?
I don’t think the editorial touches on two of the major reasons why these referendums are approved.
First, homeowners represent a small group of the voters eligible to cast a ballot on these referendums and second, most of the voters, including some homeowners, will pay little to no cost for the improvements.
How does that happen? The repayment of the bonds sold to fund the improvements can now be spread over thirty years.
How many of these voters will be living in the same residences, 10, 20 or 30 years from now?
Why is the editorial board picking on the Skokie Park District, when around two thirds of a homeowner’s property tax bill goes to fund K – 12 education? When you add the taxes for your community college district the percentage increases to approximately 70%.
The state of Illinois doesn’t help matters, when it mandates programs that increase the cost of K -12 education, such as a third day of physical education and full day kindergarten.
A simple way to control property taxes going forward is to eliminate the ability to borrow money from most of the entities that tax our homes, including school districts, park districts, library districts, etc. These entities should be “pay as you go”, so future homeowners are not burdened with paying for debt they had no say in approving.
— William Boodro, Arlington Heights
Pritzker must step in
This is a time for Gov. JB Pritzker to step up and shine out as a beacon of justice. I have just read the article in the Tribune about the plight of the immigrant mother, Beata Siemionkowicz a legal green card holder, who United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement wants to deport back to Poland for her hideous misdemeanor crime of trying to feed and clothe her young children during hard times. This has shades of Jean Valjean in “Les Misérables”! (“ICE is holding their mother, despite her green card,” July 27).
Meanwhile criminals who tried to over throw a legal election while attacking and injuring Law Enforcement officers seem to have gotten a free pass for much worse capital crimes. This woman tried to follow legal paths and procedures and do the right thing for the past decades and has atoned for her minor mistakes. Could Pritzker make things right by granting her a full and complete pardon to remove any blot in her past, and allow her to become a fully legal United States citizen?
Gov. Pritzker, use your heart and common sense in this matter.
— John A. Magala, Chicago
The end of reading?
Writing composition instructor John Warner errs in accepting Atlantic magazine staff writer, Rose Horowitch’s exaggerated “The End of Reading Is Here” (“Is the end of reading here?” July 26). Horowitch misrepresents almost all the evidence that she refers to and ignores what contradicts her. She defines nothing, especially “postliteracy,” which has no meaning. Not surprisingly, her worst case scenario attracts much attention.
Warner struggles to find his own place. He interjects, “if there is a problem, it is with readers, not reading.” He does not explain either term, leaving us to wonder how can we have reading without readers? Or vice versa. AI?
What Warner along with Horowitch and too many others fail to note is that almost all studies that they claim to show a decline in reading do not count reading across media, especially online and screen reading, and also audiobooks. Ignoring the history of literacy, they do not understand that reading always changes in relationship to media. Throughout most of human history, for example, reading was oral and collective: one reader reading out loud to many others.
In addition, the so-called time-use studies also commonly cited as documenting a decline in reading for pleasure never define their terms. More importantly, they do not take into account that much, perhaps most, reading crosses boundaries such as “reading to learn” or “reading for work” and “reading for pleasure.”
They underplay increasing sales of books and increase in reading groups of all kinds.
Most of all, as a historian of literacy — reading and writing — I cannot overemphasize that there never was a golden age of reading whether classics or pop-lit. Reading itself was often considered a threat to various establishments, as was writing as well. Once so-called mass or common literacy developed in the 19th century, literacy is often deemed to be declining. Yet, many persist in banning books.
The issue is as much ideological as social and cultural practices.
— Harvey J. Graff, Chicago
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