2023 SPRING

Rodney stopped by the office last week. He usually has an issue that is of interest to the taxpayers. This time was no exception. Rodney told me “The guys at the tavern are angry. It’s like a conspiracy. The guys say that anytime the City wants more money they just raise the value of their house. It ain’t fair and the guys are getting tired of it. They drafted me to have you tell us who we need to be mad at.”
I responded that it doesn’t work that way Rodney.
So Rodney says “Well just give us a name. All we need is a name. We’ll take it from there.” So here’s what I told Rodney: There is no name. Property taxes are local to pay for local services. If it costs $200 to run a school then it costs $200 to run the school regardless of who pays. But by keeping things local each tax dollar supports local benefits. This is very significant. We do not pay any State property tax.
We start with the levies. Taxing bodies, sometimes called tax agencies, are listed on each property tax bill. Each taxing body asks for a certain amount of money each year to operate the taxing body. That’s the levy. The amount of money the taxing body asks for. The largest levy is the grade school. Largest does not mean bad. First, someone has to be largest. So what. Second, this is the way that we locally fund our local schools. An elected school board sets the school levy. This is what the school board is supposed to do. Villages. The Niles Township Villages (we do not have a city municipality in Niles Township) file their levies, just as does the other taxing bodies. The Village we live in does not control anything more than their levy. That is to say specifically that the Villages do not raise taxes or determine property values or set the tax rates, or conspire to do any of that. And, as we will see, the Villages do not raise property values whenever they want more money. Niles Township Government Office is among the very lowest levies. We have a board of trustees. They create a levy for the Township. That is what they are supposed to do. The individual taxing bodies file their levy requests with the Cook County Clerk. The Cook County Assessor, Fritz Kaegi, assigns a value to each of Cook County’s 1.8 million tax parcels. Every year the County Assessor reassess 1/3 of the County: North suburbs; South
suburbs; or City of Chicago. That is what he is supposed to do. Our most recent reassessment was tax year 2022. 

Treasurer. Maria Pappas. The Treasurer issues the 1 st Installment tax bill on 2/1/xxxx. That is what she is supposed to do. The 1 st Installment is not the first half of the tax bill. It is a down payment based on 55% of the prior year tax bill. At this point in the tax system process no one knows the then current tax. That is the way it is designed to be. There is a lot of work to do to get 1.8 Million tax parcels processed. That work cannot possibly be completed by February of the tax year.

The mortgage companies and/or the individual taxpayers pay the 1 st Installment tax bill. The Treasurer collects the 1 st Installment tax revenues.

The Cook County Assessor accepts taxpayer appeals of those values he has assigned to a property. The Cook County Assessor also manages exemptions. That also is what he is supposed to do Exemptions are created by the Legislature, the Illinois State Senators and the State Representatives. Each exemption they create favors a specific class of people. Tax money that is exempted from a particular tax payer class does not disappear – the amount exempted is put back into the total levy, in essence to be re-distributed among the non favored tax payers, including to some extent at least by the class that received the exemption in the first place. They call this tax
burden shifting. 

Board of Review appeals. Our Cook County Board of Review Commissioner is Samantha Steele. She analyzes property values that were assigned by the County Assessor and makes value reductions where she disagrees. That is what she is supposed to do. When Board of Review appeals for Niles Township are complete Commissioner Steele closes the books and sends them back to the County Assessor.
The County Assessor applies the exemptions, certifies the property values, and closes and sends the books to the Cook County Clerk. That is also what the County Assessor is supposed to do. The Cook County Clerk applies some very complex math to the levy requests in order to calculate the final adjusted levy and the final tax rate. That is what she is supposed to do. She closes the books and sends them to Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas. Maria Pappas prepares the tax bills. She mails the bills to taxpayers. And she collects and distributes the tax revenue to the appropriate taxing body.

The Niles Township Assessor, that’s me, Scott Bagnall, and my Deputy Assessor. We are the taxpayers’ advocate. We learn the law, and the rules and procedures so we can assist our taxpayers in functioning within a complex constantly evolving and revolving property tax system.

Here is some of what we, the Niles Township Assessor, do:
-Property exemption status, changes and corrections;
-Appeals to the Cook County Assessor
-Appeals to the Board of Review ;
-Assessed values of neighboring properties (i.e. comparables);
-Property characteristic correction;
-Name and address changes;
-Notary service;
-Taxpayer outreach seminars and workshops;-Building permit information.

-Special problems
-seminars, workshops and presentations of meaningful information;
-Property exemption status, changes and corrections;
-Certificates of Error (where there has been a tax overpayment);
-Advice and counsel along with appeal assistance to commercial/industrial taxpayers;
-Helpful Legal advice (I am an attorney) and counsel for special circumstances;
-Name and address changes;
-Building permit information; -Work with the Cook County Assessor and the Board of Review;
-Assistance with other property tax related forms and procedure;
-Never a charge or fee;
-Taxpayer appeal and outreach seminars and workshops; and
-Informative articles for the Township newsletter.

Rodney says : “ I know. I know. The best thing that a taxpayer can do is to receive emails from your office by registering at NilesTownshipAssessor.com “
But, Rodney continues “Let’s see if I have it right. We are the local people who pay for our local benefits through our property tax. The legislature creates exemptions which shift some of the tax burden away from some tax payers. A lot of people coordinate and work in sequence within the system to process the property tax in a fair and consistent manner. If taxes are to be called too high – then it is in the levies, not the people who are doing their jobs. There is no conspiracy.
There is no person or office to blame.”
You got it Rodney. 1.17

Scott Bagnall
NilesTownshipAssessor.com