Results tagged “propertytaxincrease”

If you're one of the hundreds of thousands of people that will get stuck with a higher property tax bill this year, one of the things you may be wondering (besides 'why me?') is where that money goes, specifically. Thanks to a new search engine Cook County Clerk David Orr put up the other day, property owners in TIF districts can now see how much of their tax money is going into Mayor Daley's personal slush fund. Progress Illinois took it for a test drive, using Mayor Daley's permanent index number.

For fun, we plugged in Mayor Daley's PIN number (17-22-109-027-0000) and found that a whopping 92 percent of his property taxes were redirected into the Near South TIF last year. By contrast, cash-strapped schools are getting a mere 3.9 percent of the Daley's property tax dollars. This goes to show how much strain the TIF system are putting on those local taxing bodies entrusted to deliver education and other public services.

As property taxes in the city are set to skyrocket, Mayor Daley, still reeling from the parking meter debacle, the loss of the 2016 Summer Olympics and an all-time low popularity rating is playing the blame game. After claiming that he'll hold the line on taxes with next year's budget, he's pointing fingers now that property tax bills are set to soar, even while property values have plummeted. Going after Cook County Assessor James Houlihan, Daley proclaimed his ignorance of how property taxes are assessed. "The thing I can't understand (is) this whole assessment deal," the mayor said. "Now, no one's value is going up in the city. ... I'm asking him how he does it." (Our own Chuck Sudo explained how they work in the comments of this post.)

Even though property values are down, property tax bills are going up. In the city, property tax bills will see an increase by an average of six percent while the increase in the suburbs of Cook County will see an average increase of four percent. [ABC 7]