Mid-Year Budget Meetings: Assessor Shares Improvements and Treasurer Announces that 2nd Installment Tax Bills Will Go Out in Late August

Assessor
July 23, 2026

Assessor Fritz Kaegi presented the mid-year budget update and reported on how the funds budgeted for the Assessor’s Office for the first six months of 2026 were spent. Chief of Staff Scott Smith provided details as requested.

• Within budget for 2026
• 2027 budget.  Push to maintain quality within budget.
• Received five awards at National Association of Counties (NACO) annual meeting in July 2026: for (1)reaching out to Chicago homeowners experiencing property tax hikes for assistance, (2) creating new kiosk & call back system to improve tax payer services, (3) creating new IT help desk, (4) creating talent internship program, and (5)creating data integrity department
• At NACO, with Maricopa County Assessor Eddie Cook, presented changes that since 2018 made making property tax system more transparent, fair and accessible.
• Reported that Prof. Chris Barry, University of Chicago found since 2018, previously under-assessed Gold Coast and over-assessed  low and middle-priced homes in Chicago have been corrected saving low and middle income homeowners $1.9 billion off their property tax bills.
• Says root causes of property tax increases for homeowners are commercial property tax reductions for data centers and for high-rise luxury apartment buildings.  
• New interactions with the Board of Review (BOR):  now using the same estimated tax rate for determining the assessment for commercial properties, and now appearing at BOR appeal hearings to defend Assessor’s assessment of properties
• Redesigned websites, forms with help from Literacy Work.  Available in multiple languages.
• Updated software PTaxSim to simulate changes in property tax with changes in types of properties and property features.
• 127 Outreach events, 23 focused on the south and west suburbs.

Information provided in response to Commissioner questions:

• Implementing recommendations of 2024 Commercial Valuation Report: 
• Assessor’s office valuations are closer to actual sales of properties than the BOR.  Needed to be in agreement on estimating tax rates for purposes of assessments of commercial properites.  Now will load “effective” tax rates for commercial properties since finding agreement with BOR.
• Meets with BOR every two weeks and weekly on tax bill schedules.
• Said there should be a sales ratio study annually in December, but this has not been received from the Cook County President’s Office since Dec 2024 and have not seen this for apartment buildings.
• NACO is asking for appraisal information from national mortgage database to improve accuracy of property description.
• Pending legislation in Illinois will help seniors by making “Senior Freeze Exemption” (SFE) auto-renewable.
• Working with IL Dept. of Revenue (IDOR) to check income and to update SFE when property sells; will send two notices to homeowner, and follow-up fall 2026.
• Using new vendor, Lexus Nexus, for better addressing data. Assessor receives info when SFE holder moves into “retirement” home.
• SFE income cap lifted in 2026 legislation beginning in 2027 from $65K, increasing on a phased-in basis to $79K .
• 23 staff bonuses (17  public facing) are bi-lingual English-Spanish certified and get monthly bonuses per County policy; also,  “pocket-talk” devices are in use for all languages.
• Neighborhood valuations increase due to local improvements, if existing home does not have improvements, homeowner must appeal.
• Attend outreach: more than one event is held per day.
• Use the data modelling online to help appeal.
• Support NACO’s. request for Fannie Mae data.
• Four different levels of appeal in Illinois: (1) Assessor’s Office: in closest contact with taxpayer, holds most property records; Appeals by homeowners w/o attorneys are 25-30% of total appeals and better outcomes than with attorneys; (2) BOR; (3) Illinois Property Tax Appeals Board (IPTAB): and/or (4)Circuit Court
• Reassessing commercial properties in suburbs depends on receipt of permits describing construction and improvements from local governing bodies.
• Says data Centers appeal to BOR and claim personal property or owned by a real estate company; If assessed lower than actual, puts burden on homeowner; have deep pockets to take appeal to IPTAB and court.
• Recommend Illinois Dept. of Professional Regulation (IDPR) be asked to prosecute appraisers who intentionally under-appraise Data Centers.
• Recommend County exert some control over whether property tax incentives are granted.
• BOR changed residential assessed values by approximately 1%.  BOR lowers taxes of commercial properties by 20-25%.  Hopes that agreement on estimating tax rates will help address this difference, along with other steps of sharing Assessor’s data and appearing at BOR appeals hearings to defend Assessor’s assessments. 
• Harvey and neighboring areas are nationally most over-assessed low-income homeowners and most vulnerable to state law changes. HB 1167 in Rules, would provide homestead relief to individual property homeowners.  Under-assessing commercial properties and school funding system in those areas has more impact.  As new housing is built in South Suburbs, existing homes without remodeling can be mistakenly assessed at higher values because of the new housing higher sales prices.  These homeowners need to appeal and attest that their homes are not updated and should therefore be assessed lower than the new construction in the area.

Treasurer
July 23, 2026

Dave Burns, Chief of Staff for the Treasurer, Maria Pappas presented the mid-year budget update and reported on how the funds for the Treasurer’s office for the first six months of 2026 were spent. 
2026 so far:

• $19.1 million overall: $18.4m is in the automation account, per County ordinance, is composed of fees collected from commercial and bulk payers, not general revenue.  No anticipated financial concerns for the remainder of 2026. Not expected to exceed amount budgeted in corporate account
• 9 vacant positions:  8 in the special purpose funds and 1 in the corporate fund.
• Revenue from late payers is trending higher: Revenue budgeted for 2026 is $35m.  However, thru June received $33.8m. Reason: Dec 2025-Apr2026 collected $14m for second installment due in fiscal 2025. 2026 total revenue is projected to be $47.4m.

2026 highlights:

• Working on full implementation of Tyler Integrated Property Tax System (IPTS)
• Treasurer’s office is at the end of the life cycle of property taxes. Dependent on other offices being on time with accurate data to Tyler. Treasurer examines and tests Tyler tax bill file, finds defect and corrects before sending to printer. Continuing to find defects in refunds and distributions.
• Treasurer’s IT staff is committed to a smooth hand-off from retiring IT employees, managing IT data changes, and returning to AI implementation and utilization after the IPTS is stable.
• July 10, Governor signed Property Tax Reform Bill updating the tax sale auction system.
• Scavenger Sale phased out. If property is not sold to private tax buyer, then tax certification is held by the County to either deed (sell) outright or to deed to another municipality or Not-For-Profit.
• Expect that 2025 2nd installment property tax bills will be online on the Treasurer’s web site by mid-August and mailed bills go out in late August.  Payments will be due then by October 1, 2026.

Observer:  Victoria Cerinich