By Chris Lauzen, Kane County Treasurer
December 2025
1. Tax Increases
- Maximum Property Tax (Second Year in a Row) $2M
- 60% County Gas Tax...Now 3rd Highest out of 102 IL Counties $6.5 (Took Only 9 Board Members - with absences - to extract multi-millions!)
- Maximum Grocery Tax on Family Food $.4 - 1.4M
Jean-Baptiste Colbert, finance minister for King Louis XIC of France: "Taxation is the art of plucking the goose to obtain the most feathers with the lease squawking".
2. Road and Capital Funds Raided
- Regional Transportation Authority Sales Taxes Diverted Away From "Transportation"
- Building Capital Spending Reduced from $6M (original) to $2M.
- Less money for matching grants
3. Nomenclature / Propaganda / Agitatsiya / Maskirovka (Media Bias/Obfuscation)
- Kane County Connects: 60% Gas Tax Increase called "...a county gas tax adjustment".
- Chicago Tribune-Aurora Beacon: Significant ($7M) REDUCTION called "Kane County shifting roadwork plans" (headline)
- So-Called "Balance Budget" when $2-6M in Reserves Will Be Used
- "We're all in this together" (Puh-leaze!)
George Orwell (December 1948): "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command. (His heart sank as he thought of the enormous power arrayed against him, the ease with which any Party intellectual would overthrow him in debate)...The solid world exists, its laws do not change. Stones are hard, water is wet, objects unsupported fall towards the earth's center."
4. "Bait and Switch" Presentation to Public (with Multimillion Changes)
- Promised Reconsideration of Maximum Property Tax Increase (Not done)
- Promised Reconsideration of 20% Raise for Board Members (Not done)
5. Self-Delusional "Passive-Aggressive" Smoke and Mirrors
- Ink-on-Paper Spending Plan; Few Actual Reductions in major agencies
- Watch out for August-September 2026 Supplemental "Emergency" Requests
6. The Most Stubborn "Form-over-Substance" Squandering of Interest Income
- What do Kane County Taxpayers have to show for $60,000,000 (??)
7. Illinois' Undisciplined Political Leadership "poking" federal government, reducing likelihood and amount of federal funding...which eventually shortchanges Kane County grants.
8. Waste/Abuse of Taxpayer Sacrifice on "Pet" Projects, e.g., so-called strategic plan, internship program, County "climate plan", political grandstanding proclamations, quarter-of-a-million supplemental accounting contract, etc.
