Cook County’s property tax system is a Rubik’s Cube for even those relatively steeped in assessments and equalization factors value to decipher. So pity the ordinary property owners who have to pay the taxman two times every year.
All they know is that the tax cost of owning a home — you know, that thing we call the American Dream — keeps growing at rates that seem unsustainable. And, naturally, they want to know who to blame.
One Cook County officeholder, Assessor Fritz Kaegi, already has felt the public’s anger, losing his Democratic primary reelection race to challenger Patrick Hynes. Kaegi in many respects simply was the messenger who got removed for being in a post directly related to property taxes when many Chicago homeowners got the bad news late last year that their taxes had soared due to the pandemic’s deflating effect on commercial property values.
So leave it to the always-canny Cook County treasurer, Maria Pappas, to issue a comprehensive report less than two weeks after voters made their displeasure known at the polls — saying to residents, in effect, “No, it’s not your imagination. Property taxes really are that bad.”
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Despite record funding for K-12 education and Gov. Evers’ 400-year veto providing $325 per pupil per year for the next four centuries, 72 school districts are asking taxpayers for even more money.