Help us keep our local government!

This was the message a group of area township officials gave Illinois representatives at a meeting in Murphysboro Tuesday to discuss the problems that township governments face.

The meeting was one of five that will be held around Southern Illinois this year by a bipartisan task force formed by Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, to study the issues affecting downstate Illinois townships.

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Townships are small government units that represent constituents at a local level. Bost said townships give many rural residents localized representation that they could not get at the county level.

Although they are separate from cities, township boundaries often overlap municipal boundaries. The services cities and townships provide are sometimes intertwined and vary in different places.

It’s the closet form of government, Bost said. They get more done for the money. That’s a known fact, he said.

85 of Illinois’ 102 counties have townships, Stan Partridge, Supervisor of the Mount Vernon Township, said. He said there are 1432 townships state-wide.

Townships maintain more miles of roads than the Illinois Department of Transportation and are crucial in funding education. Most townships get the majority of their money from property taxes.

Partridge said the amount of services townships provide varies greatly. Some only maintain roads and fund education while others implement many social programs at the local level.

Township officials raised several concerns at the meeting.

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Partridge complained that the state legislature is placing burdens and rules on townships without giving enough consideration to what effects these actions will have on local government.

He said changes in programs for needy people have put his township in a situation where it can only give aid recipients $60 a month. He said the township would have to assume the recipients medical expenses if they were given more than the $60 maximum. With a tax base of $61,000, Partridge said the township simply could not afford to do this.

Government should be human and have a heart, he said. I know they’ve lost heart in township governments because of what they (the Illinois General Assembly make us do, he said.

Township officials also expressed a fear of property tax caps that some members of the General Assembly want to implement state-wide.

This would limit the resources of townships at a time when more and more are needed the officials said.

Clara McClure, a Carbondale township official, said federal and state cuts eventually make their way down to the townships who cannot pass the cuts on because they are so localized.

We are not going to meet the needs of our people with the money we have, she said.

Township officials warned that property-tax caps would force the government units to hunt for state money to finance rising education costs.

Partridge also asked the representatives to give townships a share of income taxes.

Other township officials asked for a portion of state income taxes because municipalities already get a share.

Rep. Larry Woolard, D-Carterville, pointed out problems with this idea because some counties do not have townships. He said this would force any income tax funds for a township to come from the county they are located in.

It wouldn’t be fair to those counties if Jackson got a double-dip, he said. Are you ready to fight that battle? Woolard asked warning that counties may not be ready to give their funds to townships.

Rep. Chuck Hartke, D-Teutopolis, said townships also have to fight off legislators who want to eliminate them.

Township government is under fire in some parts of Illinois by people who feel it’s an outdated form of government, he said.

At the end of the night Hartke said he had come to a conclusion.

I guess what we should do is give townships more leeway to shape their programs in ways they know will help their people, he said to loud applause.

Gov. Jim Edgar also expressed support yesterday for loosening restrctions on townships.

Coming from a rural area, I understand the importance of townships, he said. I don’t think people in Springfield should tell locals what to do with their government.

Partridge said he was hopeful that the legislators would take some of the township administrator’s comments back to Springfield.

I think they learned a lot tonight, he said. You could see it in their faces.