When word got out that in the 11th hour, just before its June 1 adjournment deadline, the Illinois house had voted to extend the home owner’s exemption, friends started calling me to ask if it meant their property tax bills were going down.
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The longer explanation? A property tax bill is based on two basic variables: a property’s assessment and the tax rate applied by the county, city, parks, and schools. If assessments go up, taxpayers can still avoid an increase in taxes if the city and the county and the schools and all the other taxing districts drop their tax rates. But over the last few years the rise in assessments has outpaced the decline in tax rates.
Politicians, particularly the mayor, have been blaming Cook County assessor James Houlihan, but it’s not really his fault. By state law the assessor is required to conduct property reassessments every three years. After the city’s last assessment, in 2006, property values climbed dramatically in many neighborhoods.
So far the state has attempted to shelter home owners from rising assessments by hiking their exemption, a tax break for residential property owners that effectively lowers their property assessment. In 2003 the general assembly raised the exemption from $4,500 to $20,000. That increase was set to expire this year, meaning home owners were looking to get whacked on another front. But for months Madigan, Daley, and senate president Emil Jones have been dickering over what to do about the problem. In February the senate passed Senate Bill 13, which raised the exemption to $60,000. Then it languished in the house until just before the June 1 adjournment deadline. Why? Good question. The state’s most powerful politicians keep saying they want to pass a bill giving property taxpayers some relief but darn it, they just can’t get it through the legislature–which Madigan controls with an iron fist.
Keep in mind that the legislation still has to pass the senate. If it doesn’t, the home owner’s exemption falls to $5,000, which means Sarah will be looking at a second installment of more than $4,500. “If that bill comes, I don’t know how I’ll pay it,” she says.
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): illustration by Paul Dolan.
