By Cole Lauterbach
Illinois News Network

SPRINGFIELD — For all of the outcry and political promises to help property taxes, Illinoisans still pay the second highest rates in the nation.

A report from ATTOM Data Solutions says the state’s 3.2 million homeowners paid 2.2 percent of their home’s worth in local taxes in 2018. That’s higher than any other state in the nation except New Jersey. The average Illinois homeowner paid $5,000, but it’s still common for homes in some suburban counties and the Rockford area to see taxes be the majority of their monthly mortgage payments.

“Counties like Bureau, Winnebago, Jackson, those are close to three percent effective tax rates,” Todd Teta, chief product officer with ATTOM Data Solutions, said.

Neighboring Indiana had the lowest rates of the Midwestern region, where homeowners paid 0.9 percent of the average home’s worth.

The Rockford area again got national attention for being the only metropolitan area outside of New York to be in the top five highest-tax metro’s.

“Among 219 metropolitan statistical areas analyzed in the report with a population of at least 200,000, those with the highest effective property tax rates were Binghamton, New York (3.19 percent); Syracuse, New York (2.89 percent); Rochester, New York (2.88 percent); Rockford, Illinois (2.83 percent); and Atlantic City, New Jersey (2.74 percent).”

Illinois’ 7,000 units of local government and low state investment in education often gets blamed for high property taxes.

Hawaii, Alabama, Colorado, Nevada, Utah saw the lowest property tax rates in 2018.