Cook County Commissioners Updated on Property Tax System Status

Legislation and Intergovernmental Relations Committee Meeting
June 10, 2026

Most of the meeting was an update to the Board of Commissioners and the public on the measures that are being undertaken to improve the processes and oversight within the Property Tax System. Comm. Britton requested that each office reporting not rehash the problems that are well known but provide information on how they are addressing the problems that have been previously identified and plagued the system for a long time. He asked that they limit their remarks to 10 minutes so Commissioners would have time for questions. (Agenda Item 26-1230 - Received and Filed)

Summary of presentations and questions:

• Office of the President - Jim Thompson, Director of Property Tax Policy - Stated that the lack of clear authority and lack of collaboration among the several offices involved in the process underlie the structural problems of the system. He provided an outline/timeline of how the Assessor, the Board of Review (BOR), the Illinois Depart of Revenue (IDOR), the County Clerk, and the Treasurer are supposed to work together to determine what the tax should be, to provide for collection of the taxes, and then distribution of the money to the various bodies that are supported by the property taxes. He referred to the reform group that has been meeting with representatives from all the entities. They have been looking to determine changes that can be made. He also said that imposing a new computer system (Tyler) on top of the problems that already existed has been challenging as each entity has integrated the system on a different time line. Meetings with Tyler are now being held daily and work continues to fix the system.
• Assessor - Fritz Kaegi - He stated that each part of the system depends on others doing their work so that deadlines can be met. His office is now sharing methodology on tax rates with the BOR so that is going more smoothly. Once his office receives the information from the BOR (revised assessments and certificates of error - see the presentation from the BOR below) and enters the information into the Tyler system, the Assessor’s office sends information to IDOR. This year his office still had to do manual reconciliation of the data to be sent to IDOR, but next year all data should be in the Tyler system so manual reconciliation will not be required. When asked, he said the process is 1 1/2 to 2 months behind schedule this year. Data was sent to IDOR on June 10 so it can calculate the multiplier and then that information comes back to the Assessor before he can send everything on to the Clerk. The IDOR process usually takes from 7-10 days. Comm. Degnan asked how many problems (defects) remain in the Tyler system for the Assessor’s office. Mr. Kaegi stated that the office is 95% working within the Tyler system. Tom Lynch from the Cook County Department of Technology stated that the Assessor part of Tyler has been working okay - it is the tax administration functionality phase that is still being worked on. 
• Board of Review - William O’Shields, Chief Deputy Commissioner, Commissioners Steele and Cardenas – The BOR does not create an assessment - it reviews appeals of an assessment. The BOR also reviews certificates of error. The BOR is the first transfer of information after the Assessor. The appeal process allows for oral arguments and the decisions are to correct errors in the initial assessment.   The BOR sends the corrected assessments to the Assessor’s office for entry into the property tax system.   Comm. Cardenas stated that they are working to reduce the time frame for reviews and working more closely with the Assessor to align their approach. Comm. Steele stated that the BOR has 3 individual offices. each with their own staff of about 40 persons. Each office needs to hear every appeal. There were no questions from the Commissioners. 
• County Clerk – Chief Deputy Clerk Cedric Giles  - That office deals with tax rates and it is fully using the Tyler system. The office applies the tax rates to the information from the Assessor and that process takes about 16-20 days to complete. That office also manages the redemption payments after the tax sale and this process is still not fully functional on Tyler. 
• Treasurer - David Byrnes, Chief of Staff - Began by reading a letter from Treasurer Maria Pappas. Comm. Britton reminded him not to focus on the past but highlight what changes are being made to make the system work. Mr. Byrnes stated that 2500 tax bills from last year have still not been sent due to data issues in the Tyler system that still has an identified 214 defects (though not all of these are critical). Since those bills have not been sent, the tax income has not been determined and thus cannot be distributed. The 2500 that have not been sent are scattered throughout the County and there are 6-7 defects that are holding them up. Mark Hawkins from Tyler stated that last year the first set of bills was done still on the mainframe computer and the second was sent on Tyler. Part of the problem holding up the bills from last year was that there were inconsistencies between the data in the two systems.  This year everything is being done through Tyler so the data problem should not continue. 
• The latest date for the termination of the mainframe is now July 31, 2026. All offices are off the mainframe except for the Clerk’s office that still uses it for reference. The Assessor started using Tyler 3 years ago according to Tom Lynch (Chief Information Officer, Dept. of Technology). He also stated that all payments to Tyler are based on milestones being met. To maintain the mainframe costs about $7M/year and the hardware is so old it is no longer available and all employees who worked on it are now retired. Comm. Degnan pressed Tom Lynch to estimate the cost for all the problems that have occurred with the tax system and his estimate was about $20M. 

Prior to these presentations,

• Meeting began with Public Speakers that included Priscilla Mims speaking on behalf of the League of Women Voters of Cook County asking the Commissioners to encourage the local election authorities to provide a way for voters to submit their Vote-by-Mail Ballots at their local precincts on election day. In addition, there were 2 other speakers addressing Voting Rights; 8 speakers from entities that have not received their tax distributions for the year and asking that the tax system be fixed; and 4 other speakers making general comments. 
• An amendment to the ordinance about the process for filling vaccines of some of the separately elected County Offices was approved by the committee without comment. (26-1414) 
• A resolution calling for a hearing on Voting Rights was not discussed. (26-1409)

Observer:  Cynthia Schilsky