Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi is under criticism for excessively high land value assessments. | Facebook/Cook County Assessors Office
Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi is under criticism for excessively high land value assessments. | Facebook/Cook County Assessors Office
Intervention by local Cook County taxing bodies helped reduce inflated land value estimates from the Cook County Assessor’s office by more than $2.7 billion.
Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s estimates were so exaggerated that school districts, municipalities and park districts joined commercial and industrial property owners to make formal objections to the assessments, a release issued by Renew Cook County said.
It is to local taxing bodies’ benefit to intervene. The assessments are used in calculating property tax bills. When they step in, it’s usually to claim a property assessment is too low. This time, however, their challenge was that the values were too high.
“When the Assessor inaccurately inflates land values, he creates a new financial liability for local governments and taxpayers,” the Renew Cook County release said. If that happens and the property owners appeal and win after having paid taxes based on the excessive assessment, the local taxing body must immediately return the overpayment. Local governments have had to raise taxes or go into debt to pay refunds.
The Village of Hoffman Estates stepped in to avoid paying tax refunds when Kaegi’s office made assessments 80% too high for AT&T's corporate campus and 87% for the corporate campus of Sears, the release said.
The new assessments typically are still increases from those of previous years.
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