South Cook News

Illinois State Rep. Anthony DeLuca (D-Chicago Heights) is calling to unwind Cook County’s property classification system, which has allowed elected officials to hike property taxes on businesses there to the highest in the country.

House Bill 5647, filed by DeLuca on Feb. 9, would exempt four south suburban townships— Bremen, Rich, Bloom and Thornton— from the Cook County system, which requires commercial and industrial property owners to pay twice as much in property taxes as they would otherwise.

Cook County residential property taxpayers pay proportionally lower rates in the system, the brainchild of former Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, who had it enshrined in the Illinois Constitution in 1970 in an attempt to prevent “white flight” to the collar counties.

The scheme also spawned Chicago’s “property tax appeals” business, in which land owning businesses hire politically connected “law firms” who get their taxes lowered, in exchange for sharing a piece of the savings.

Former Chicago Ald. Ed Burkę (D-14th Ward), recently convicted of bribery and awaiting sentencing, and former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan, on trial for bribery, both opened property tax appeals businesses shortly after the classification system was established.

DeLuca’s bill says that “from assessment year 2025 through assessment year 2030, in Bremen, Bloom, Rich, and Thornton townships in Cook County, commercial and industrial property shall be assessed at the same level of assessment as residential property.”

“Beginning with assessment year 2031, Cook County may establish a sliding scale with respect to the statutory level of assessment for commercial and industrial property in those townships that allows those properties to be subject to the same level of assessment as other commercial and industrial property in the county,” the bill says.

Property taxes in Chicago’s South Suburbs are now so high that property owners have simply stopped paying them.

A 2019 report by South Cook News detailed 1,000 bills unpaid in Ford Heights, their properties put up for auction but with no buyers.

The Illinois State Constitution allows counties with populations above 200,000 to apply different assessment ratios to properties of different types. All other counties are required to assess property uniformly, so as not to favor one type over another.

Anthony DeLuca represents Illinois House District 80, where he was first elected in 2009. He is running for reelection this year, and will be on the Democrat primary ballot on March 19, 2024. DeLuca is a graduate of Homewood-Flossmoor high school, and attended Elmhurst college. Before being elected, he served as the mayor of Chicago Heights from 2003 until 2009.