Cross, Sandack: Making Government More Accountable to Taxpayers

Guest column from State Reps. Tom Cross (R-Oswego) and Ron Sandack (R-Downers Grove):

It’s time for Illinois policymakers to take a long look in the mirror amidst the mounting budget pressures, credit downgrades, and spending obligations spiraling out of control in Springfield. As part of our efforts to achieve reform, we have introduced a three-point set of new transparency initiatives to make state and local government more accountable to taxpayers.

With all the well-documented fiscal problems Illinois faces, there are some easy things we can do to increase government transparency and save taxpayer money.

The goal is to provide every property taxpayer with an annual itemized breakdown of the spending outlays they are billed for to support units of local government; including school districts, municipalities, library and park districts, community colleges and more.

The transparency initiatives would include provisions to: 

• Expand the Illinois Transparency Portal (ITAP) to include all taxing bodies, levies and debts; including pension and retiree health care liabilities and government spending in Illinois; (HB 1555)

• Require a State Debt Impact Note be prepared on all legislation to tax, spend or generate revenue, such as levies and fees; (HB 1556) 

• Create an Illinois Review Board to evaluate the taxes, spending, and debt of each taxing body and require the Board to publish the findings for taxpayer review.  (HB 1557)

Taken together, this package would shine light on current and future spending obligations at the state and local level for every Illinois property taxpayer. By adopting these common-sense concepts into law, taxpayers will not only be able to see how their tax dollars are being spent today – but what their tax and government spending obligations are in the coming years as well. 

Moving Illinois forward requires making a series of tough choices this spring. This transparency initiative is not one of them. On the contrary, this set of proposals will make taxpayers more well-informed, policymakers more accountable and government as a whole more open. This is a goal everyone can support.

We hope you share our enthusiasm for these transparency initiatives as we work in a bipartisan way to achieve them and ensure real accountability in government spending.