Brad Tietz, the Chamber’s Vice President of Government Relations and Strategy, spoke before the Cook County Board of Commissioners Legislation and Intergovernmental Relations Committee, which held a subject matter hearing on the Cook County Assessor’s Office’s recent act to reclassify Class 3-18 properties in Cook County without any input from the Cook County Board or general public.
The administration and costs of Cook County’s property tax systems continues to impose hardships and burdens on County residents and businesses, which have only been amplified by arbitrary and unilateral actions taken by the Cook County Assessor’s Office. As continued review of our property tax system occurs by both internal and external stakeholders, the Chamber urges the Cook County Board of Commissioners to impose guardrails on the Cook County Assessor, such as Cook County Board approvals and public comment periods, before the Cook County Assessor’s Office can make meaningful changes to the assessment process.
Remarks
Good afternoon, Chair Britton and members of the Committee. My name is Brad Tietz, Vice President of Government Relations & Strategy with the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, representing over 1,000 businesses of every size and sector across Chicago, Cook, and the Collar counties.
First, I want to thank Commissioner Morita and the rest of the Board for convening today’s meeting. Alongside public safety concerns, there is perhaps no issue that more consistently and negatively impacts almost the entirety of our membership more than Cook County’s property tax system.
Simply put, the misadministration and growing cost of Cook County’s property tax system has become a mess for both the County’s residents and businesses. While there are problems with even routine functions of the Assessor’s office, we have become increasingly concerned with the Assessor’s continued practice of arbitrarily and unilaterally changing the property tax process without any consent of the County Board, State, or general public. The recent changes to the Class 3-18 properties are just one more example in a long history of this type of practice
You’ll remember in May of 2020 the Assessor’s COVID 19 property tax factor, which reduced most residential property values by 8-10%. Not only was the move made arbitrarily and without any checks, it was dead wrong as home values skyrocketed while commercial property values have continued to struggle to say the least. That move alone continues to ripple through the county’s property tax system with potentially devastating effects, not just to residents and businesses, but our local governments and school districts.
In 2022, in response to the damage caused by the COVID-19 factor, the Chamber introduced SB 3894 which required the Assessor to establish a 60-day public comment period before he or she could make meaningful changes to the assessment process. The legislation would have created basic transparency and accountability. That bill ultimately died due to intense opposition from, you’ll never guess, Assessor Kaegi’s Office.
At that time, we were told by the county that robust stakeholder engagement would occur on reforming our property tax system. Fast forward to the fall of 2023, after little to no external stakeholder engagement occurred, a 15-page report titled “Introduction to Reform” was released identifying property tax exemptions as the primary problem facing our property tax system. To be blunt, far more reform is needed.
After the State in 2019, and now the County, both failed to meaningfully study our property tax systems, the Chamber introduced and passed SB 3455 this last Session, which requires the Illinois Department of Revenue, a neutral third-party, to study Illinois’ and Cook County’s property tax system, with input from ALL impacted stakeholders. That report will be due to the Governor and General Assembly by July 1, 2026.
As the State study begins, it is our hope that a comprehensive review of the system will look at the impact of classification on economic development, roles and responsibilities across the administration of our property taxes, and how other jurisdictions administer their systems in clearer, standardized, and objective fashions.
In the meantime, we respectfully urge the County Board to impose guardrails on the Assessor before the Office can make changes that meaningfully impact the assessment process for years to come. Cook County Board approvals and public comment periods are the least that should be expected when material changes to an already complicated property tax assessment process are being considered.
The impact on your residents and businesses is too important to not act. We look forward to working with the President’s Office and the Board in the coming months and years on meaningful reforms to this broken system. Thank you for your time.