Do you know which township you live in? Many people don’t. But Illinois has 1,426 of them, so it’s worth paying attention to what they do.
Bob Anderson is. The former McHenry Township trustee-turned-watchdog is championing legislation to reduce the number of townships in Illinois.
He says this form of government is largely outdated — townships, as he puts it, were established in the mid-1800s when the state was populated by settlers in few towns and villages.
“In the 21st century, township government has evolved into an overlapping unit of government … costing property owners over $750 million in property taxes annually,” he wrote in a letter to lawmakers that he shared with the editorial board.
McHenry County, where Anderson lives, has 17 townships. The county also has 30 cities and villages.
There’s something to the consolidation movement, and the need for consolidation comes up seemingly every year in the capital. It’s also got the backing of Gov. JB Pritzker. That’s because it’s a popular, commonsense initiative — and it’s not hard to see why.
Illinois has certainly become famous for its vast number of government entities, with a total of 8,505 townships, counties, villages, water reclamation districts … you name it. The St. Louis Fed points out that Illinois has more than 1.5 times as many units of government as California, despite having less than a third as many residents. All of this to say, the vast quantity of government in Illinois is an outlier.
So what do they do — and do we really need them? As with most things, it depends.
In general, townships handle road maintenance for rural byways. They also provide services to seniors, such as transportation, and provide financial aid to low-income residents.
We concede that some townships provide valuable services no other governmental body offers, particularly in rural areas of the state.
It’s a different story in densely populated areas, where townships overlap with counties and villages. Is such a tangle of government truly necessary?
Pritzker thinks there’s room to trim. He signed legislation in 2019 to make it easier to dissolve townships. That was a good first step. He proposed to go even further this year as part of his fiscal year 2026 budget.
Lawmakers this session filed a handful of bills in Springfield to further the cause. One would allow election authorities to merge contiguous townships into a single election precinct if certain conditions are met. Another measure would dissolve all townships with fewer than 5,000 residents, consolidating them with either an adjacent township or the county governing their geographic area.
All of these bills share a common goal: reducing the size and scope of government across Illinois.
Unfortunately, the movement appears to have stalled in Springfield. Despite the governor’s backing, Senate and House committees moved none of the bills aiming to shrink Illinois’ number of townships before the legislature’s deadline for committee action.
The apparent reason for inaction is staunch opposition from township supervisors and state lawmakers who previously served as township officials or are closely aligned with those running townships today. Small wonder: The preservation of townships means more well-paid elective offices, accompanied by the pensions those jobs often confer.
Even some downstate Republicans oppose the movement, arguing that dissolving townships will lead to tax hikes. We don’t follow that line of thinking.
There is precedent for dissolving townships and shifting their responsibilities to other governmental units, and we’ve written in support of consolidation before. In southern Illinois, 17 counties function smoothly without townships. Evanston residents voted to abolish Evanston Township in 2014, with its responsibilities being passed on to the city of Evanston. In the Metro East, Belleville Township dissolved in 2017, with the city of Belleville picking up its needed services. And a referendum to dissolve West Peoria Township passed in 2020.
We do not support the “burn it down” school of government reform being employed at the national level, instead subscribing to a more thoughtful approach that lays out plans to consolidate that include specifics on what services are cut, which remain and what entity will take them on. This should not be limited to townships. For example, the Civic Committee is recommending the dissolution of the four Cook County Mosquito Abatement Districts and merging their responsibilities with the county. Good idea.
“If you want change, you gotta start small,” Anderson told us.
Indeed. Here’s to small — but needed — change. We hope consolidation comes up again in Springfield later in the year.
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