Hospital Property Tax Dispute Update

There was a big ruling with one of the hospital property tax cases that have been lingering over local governments of Champaign County for years now. The News-Gazette had initial coverage on their website Wednesday night when the ruling came down:

The Carle health system has prevailed in a 13-year-old legal quest to win back its charitable tax exemptions on four Urbana properties, among them Carle Foundation Hospital.

In a lengthy written opinion issued Wednesday, Judge Randy Rosenbaum found that Carle was entitled to partial tax exemptions on the properties for seven out of eight disputed years, 2005-11, and ordered the Champaign County treasurer to issue Carle a tax refund of more than $6.2 million.

The city of Urbana, Cunningham Township, several local taxing authorities and the Illinois Department of Revenue — all defendants in the 2007 suit filed by Carle — were further ordered to pick up the tab for the cost of the litigation, excluding Carle’s attorney fees.

Full article available here. Thursday's News-Gazette eEdition also has a basic timeline, going all the way back to 2004, explaining how we got to this point with Carle and the property tax disputes here (subscription). Today's paper had a breakdown of the amount owed by the individual taxing bodies:

The amounts the other six taxing districts will owe include:

— Champaign County: $1,481,897.

— Champaign County Forest Preserve: $156,913.

— Parkland College: $967,414.

— Cunningham Township: $367,295.

— Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District: $517,467.

— Champaign-Urbana Public Health District: $208,589.

While the refund must be made by the treasurer’s office, Weibel said, the money to cover the check will be coming from the seven taxing districts.

That full article available here which also had some initial response from the County Treasurer. Here's another updated News-Gazette article with a response from the Mayor of Urbana:

“We have long contended that Carle Foundation Hospital should support the health of the community in which it is located by paying its fair share of costs for public safety, infrastructure, schools, parks and other core services,” she said. “We believe that the cost of medical charity care for a service region of 1.4 million people should not be borne by taxpayers in one small city of 42,500 people.”

Marlin said the city will be considering its options going forward, but she wants to set Urbana taxpayers’ minds at rest that this ruling won’t affect Urbana’s tax rate and city services. Carle’s tax payments over the years that are now subject to a court-ordered refund have been set aside, she said.

That full article here. More on Urbana's statement on the ruling from WCCU here. WCIA had even more on how the City of Urbana was prepared for the worst here. How exactly this well affect the County and what it means for other hospital property tax exemptions and the budget, I'm not entirely sure yet. The topic has come up before on the Cheat Sheet in regards to the County's financial ratings and outlook and in long term budget concerns of the County board.

More on that to come...