Does anyone have experience fighting high property taxes in their area? As I pointed out in the forums, my county (Lake County in Illinois, north of Chicago) is gouging us on our taxes.

My taxes aren't out of line with my neighbors', IMHO, so I don't think I will make much headway in trying to argue my individual tax bill should be lower. (In fact I've read of instances where people's tax bill went UP after they tried to dispute their assessment. Not interested in that.)

So the question is how does one fight these extreme taxes? The bulk of the taxes are for the schools -- do we start by lobbying the school board and voting for people on the school board who will be more fiscally responsible? Or do we focus on county and state lawmakers to do something about this?

At one time our governor, Rod Blagojevich, suggesting raising the income tax from 3% to 4% in order to give relief to property tax payers. At the time I was renting so I didn't pay much attention... I'd be interested in seeing what the results of such a law would do. It's probably not even on the table now because of an Illinois budget crisis.

Any others out there from Lake County or other suburban counties fed up? Or does anyone else have ideas and suggestions for effective ways of dealing with this?