Editorial:
Illinois exodus: Flight of the expats
Editorial Board Chicago Tribune
By the tens of thousands each year, Illinoisans are fleeing this state’s rising taxes and mediocre jobs climate. Many no longer see Illinois as their fount of opportunity, the place worth investing their lives. They know the math of Illinois’ enormous public debts and the decadeslong soaking its taxpayers face. The next governor, whether incumbent Bruce Rauner or challenger J.B. Pritzker, will lead a shrinking constituency.
Why are people ditching Illinois? What might a governor, a legislature, do to keep them? How should voters who remain here factor this intensifying Illinois exodus into their votes on Nov. 6? We’ve been tracking down expatriates and reaching out to Illinoisans who face a wrenching choice: Do we stay or go? From now until the election, we’ll introduce you to some of these people. Today, from the expats, meet the Carpenters, the Heards and the Salvas.
The Carpenters
For former Naperville resident Bruce Carpenter and his wife, the decision to move out of Illinois rested on a number: $52,000. That’s roughly how much they saved in college tuition costs by turning down engineering school for their son at the University of Illinois and moving south.
They bought a larger, more expensive home in Atlanta, in a neighborhood with high-performing schools and property taxes half of Naperville’s. Paying tuition for their son, now a freshman at the University of South Carolina, is significantly less than in-state tuition at the U. of I. would have been, due in part to scholarship money and grades that qualify him for the in-state rate even though his family’s in Georgia.
It costs to stay in Illinois. The Carpenters were among the net 33,703 residents who packed their belongings, uprooted their households and moved away in 2017. “When college rolled around, we began to look at those cost differences and unfortunately, the state of Illinois has been unable to address its fiscal challenges,” Bruce Carpenter said. “That factored into us saying, if I want to retire in 10 or 12 years, we have to go. That money adds up.”
Not only are Illinois university tuition prices high, a state budget impasse that lasted until July — and ended with a 32 percent income tax hike — tightened the screws on schools that rely heavily on state funding. Freshmen enrollment at Eastern, Western, Southern and Illinois State universities dropped substantially last year, a consequence of the Illinois exodus.
The Carpenters sold their three-bedroom, two-bathroom Naperville home for not much more than the purchase price 13 years earlier. While the property taxes climbed annually, reaching nearly $9,000 by the time they sold, the value of the home remained flat. That’s an alarming trend throughout the Chicagoland area. Home values have not kept pace with skyrocketing property taxes.
Carpenter’s two other children now attend high school in Atlanta and have access to a scholarship program that pays up to 100 percent of tuition costs for high-performing students who agree to enroll at a state university. Carpenter told the Tribune he “will always have a fondness for the state I called home.” But he grew tired of its governance, writing, “Lincoln isn’t rolling over in his grave, he is considering what he could do for a second job to help pay for the funeral.”
The Heards
The sofas, lamps, garden tools and bicycles went to buyers for whatever they were willing to pay. But the sturdy oval kitchen table and six high-backed oak chairs went to a family who never had a matching dining set.
That was the highlight of the purge James and Debbie Heard, formerly of Homer Glen, initiated before moving to Texas in 2016. “We gave things to people who never had nice things,” James Heard said. “That was one of the memorable moments.”
In 2016, the year they left for Texas, Illinois lost a net 37,508 residents, more than any state in the country. The Heards packed up their Dodge Durango with what was left of their belongings and made their way to Fairview, about 30 minutes north of Dallas in a state with no income tax.
James Heard wrote a letter to Gov. Bruce Rauner when they moved, explaining why they had to go. Their property taxes had risen from about $1,600 when they bought their five-bedroom Homer Glen home in 1996 to nearly $10,000 by the time they left. They sold their house for $325,000 and made a little money. But the value of the home did not keep pace with the property taxes owed.
“I was paying more than my fair share,” he said. “I don’t see any way out (for Illinois). People making $100,000 or more are just going to leave. They’re all looking at northwest Indiana to get away from the taxes.”
Heard voted for Rauner in 2014 and thought the new governor might be able to change the tax-and-spend culture of Springfield. But the Democrats blocked Rauner’s agenda. Heard places the blame “square on the shoulder of (House Speaker) Michael Madigan and the powerful interests of Chicago. The state just appears to be getting more and more liberal. They’re going to be running out of people to take things from.”
The Salvas
Mike Salva and his family got out of Illinois a long time ago. First to Georgia. Then to Colorado. The property taxes on the $185,000 home he sold in Bolingbrook in the 1990s were approaching $4,000 annually. In Littleton, Colo., the mountain-view Denver suburb where he now lives, the taxes on his $550,000 home are $3,200.
A former nuclear engineer with an MBA in finance from the University of Chicago, Salva puts things quantitatively. The money he saves on property taxes in Colorado versus Illinois helps him buy a new car every three years.
He has saved a lot of money over the years by escaping Illinois’ tax burden. “When I think about it, I don’t know if I could afford my house in Illinois now. My house here goes up in value 8 or 9 or 10 percent a year.”
Another scratch at the napkin and Salva sends an email: Based on square footage, if his old house in Bolingbrook were in Littleton, the tax bill would be $1,827 a year. That Bolingbrook house’s tax bill currently? We looked it up: $7,613.
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