SHIRLEY — Illinois’ Republican nominee for governor Darren Bailey has a plan to lower property tax bills in Illinois. Gov. JB Pritzker, his Democratic opponent, does not think the plan would ever actually work in the state.
Pritzker and Bailey both spoke Monday in Shirley, Illinois, at the Illinois Agriculture Legislative Round Table event, each touching on a broad array of statewide topics. However, it was the issue of property taxes, and more specifically how to lower them for Illinoisans, where the two candidates offered starkly different outlooks.
Illinois is often ranked among the states with the highest property taxes in the nation, and Peoria in particular was named as having the highest property tax rate in the country relative to market value of homes in a 2024 study.
Bailey’s plan is to put a 1% cap on property taxes in Illinois, akin to what neighboring Indiana does.
“How long are we going to sit idly by and watch our property taxes continue to escalate out of control? It must stop,” Bailey said Monday. “We’ve got perfect examples on both sides of us over in Iowa and over in Indiana where they cap their property taxes at 1%. Illinois doesn’t have a revenue problem; we have a spending problem.”
Pritzker, speaking with reporters on Monday, said he would love to see Bailey’s proposal happen in Illinois but said the problem with that plan lies in funding public bodies.
“This isn’t something you can snap your fingers about, right? I know my opponent said he wants to cap property taxes at 1%. That sounds great, I would love that, let’s try to do that, here’s the problem: You have to pay for your parks, your libraries, your school board and your local government,” Pritzker said.
Pritzker said he has “massively” increased the amount of state dollars that go toward local governments, through both the Rebuild Illinois plan and a sales tax on online transactions. However, he said the state needs to do more, and it begins with investing more in education.
In the 2026 budgeting cycle, Pritzker called for a $305 million increase for education through the evidence-based funding formula, coming to a total investment of $9.2 billion, according to Chalkbeat Chicago.
One of the things Pritzker said is not “widely paid attention to” in Illinois is properly funding schools, which takes about 65% of a property tax bill. Local school boards, he said, should use the increased amount of money from the state to give property tax relief locally.
“It strikes me that our local governments, in particular our school boards, ought to take the hint that if we’re putting more money into education, a lot of it should go into hiring teachers and making our schools better, but some of it should go into property tax relief or at least stop raising property taxes across the state,” Pritzker said.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Illinois’ candidates for governor want property tax relief. But how?
Reporting by JJ Bullock, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By JJ Bullock, Peoria Journal Star | USA TODAY Network
