Impending Real Estate Delinquent Tax Sale Brings Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. to Cook County Board Meeting

Cook County Board of Commissioners Board Meeting - March 22, 2017

Significant Issue Discussed:

Real Estate Delinquent Tax Sale  - Commissioners Gainer, Boykin, and Garcia along with Treasurer Maria Pappas brought the issue to Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., who spoke at the CC Board meeting.  He asked all commissioners to inform their constituents about Real Estate Tax Delinquency buyers: 

• 50,000 Cook County citizens are in arrears on property taxes, of which 7,000 have never received the seven notices Treasurer Pappas has mailed them concerning their property’s impending tax sale. 
• The date for the sale has been moved up by the IL legislature from July to April 3. 
• Comm. Gainer says that tax delinquency buyers provide no service to Cook County and make between $25 million to $50 million each year, preying mostly on elderly home owners who must pay up to 18% interest on “loans” from these contract buyers, when loans from legitimate banks cost 4%. 
• Gainer claims most of this activity occurs in neighborhoods like Chatham, Gresham, and other parts of the city, where homeowners are able to scrape together money to pay off these “loans”.  These tax buyers ignore much poorer parts of Cook County where they would end up owning the properties and the tax bills.  
• Both Republican and Democratic commissioners were upset with the practice and claim the reason it passed the legislature were strong lobbyists who profit from the practice.

Other items of interest discussed:  

Cook County Health and Hospitals System (CCHHS)

• The CC board is worried about CCHHS making its budget. 
• County Care enrollment is down for Affordable Care Act (ACA) adults, who tend to be more transient and not as involved in community services as families and women.  More of these adult ACA enrollees have difficulty with mental illness and permanent addresses. 
• The  proposed Trump healthcare overhaul requiring renewal of Medicaid every six months would most likely double the fall-off of enrollees. Dr. Jay Shannon projected there would be a smaller number of Medicaid plans operating in IL after this year. 
• In response to questions about poorly-rated dialysis treatment at County hospital, Dr. Shannon said they were investing in better equipment and a different model which relies on technicians rather than RNs for staffing.  Stroger has recently hired 35 new nurses.  Overtime costs are quite high in the Dialysis area due to “no-shows” and sick calls particularly for the night shift.

6B Tax Incentive

• There was long discussion about revamping the “6B Tax Incentive” recommended by Cook County’s Dept of Economic Development.  Michael Jasso,  head of Econ. Development, has been working for 15 months on revamping the 6B designation to make revocation a possibility, and pushing responsibility down to the individual municipalities.  (Agenda Item 17-0293)   
• The 6B Tax Incentive allows Cook County to compete with collar counties for jobs by equalizing tax rates.  Without the 6B Incentive most employers would choose to locate outside of Cook County. 
• In the end the ordinance was passed with only Com. Schneider voting against.

​Observer - Amy Little