You may not know much about what the Cook County assessor does, but it’s likely you’re keenly aware of the office’s impact on your bank account.
The assessor calculates the fair market value of residential and commercial properties. That assessment of property value, along with the tax levies from school districts, municipal governments and other local taxing bodies, leads to a property tax rate calculated by the Cook County clerk that’s used to produce your property tax bill.
Though it’s an arcane process, the job of assessor is vital to our lives and Cook County’s economy. Cook County’s current assessor, Democrat Fritz Kaegi, on the whole has done well handling the nuts and bolts of the job.
His performance becomes even more praiseworthy when you consider what he inherited when he took office in 2019. His predecessor, Democrat Joseph Berrios, oversaw a deeply dysfunctional operation in which the wealthy relied on politically connected tax appeal attorneys to secure favorable valuations. Ethics rules were cast aside, and patronage and nepotism became routine.
Kaegi reformed the office, modernized its data system, got rid of Berrios’ top people and ended the office’s practice of accepting campaign contributions from tax appeal lawyers.
One problem that has happened under Kaegi’s watch is that second-installment property tax bills will be delivered to homes late, when they should have been sent in July. An extended delay could keep homeowners from realizing their maximum property tax deduction on 2022 federal income tax returns. However, both Kaegi and Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle have pledged that the tax bills will be sent out (and thus will be payable) before the end of the year.
Kaegi’s opponent on the ballot is Chicago Libertarian Nico Tsatsoulis, who is frustrated with the overtaxation of Cook County properties and blames Kaegi for what he says is the incumbent’s failure “to recognize that the problem is not the redistribution of the tax burden but the magnitude of the levy.” However, it’s local taxing bodies, and not Kaegi’s office, that sets tax levies.
Kaegi has delivered on his pledge to overhaul the assessor’s office, and we enthusiastically endorse Kaegi for another term.
Also on the Cook County ballot are the offices of treasurer and clerk.
To say that Maria Pappas has reinvented the office of treasurer is a whopping understatement. Other Cook County politicians should harness Pappas’ energy, efficiency and innovative thinking as a template for how they approach their offices.
Take, for example, her office’s deep dive into the legacy of redlining, and its relevance to the scale of blight that afflicts predominantly Black and Latino communities on the South and West sides. The report, released last summer, concluded that scavenger sales aren’t the answer to restoring thousands of distressed properties in communities suffering from long-standing housing discrimination. The analysis also offered sound, doable solutions to reform how vacant and abandoned properties are handled in Cook County.
Pappas is also a skilled handler of taxpayer money. When she took over in 1998, the office had 250 employees. Today it has 58. “If we had 250 employees today, our budget would be $55.5 million,” she told us. “Instead, the office budget is $12.7 million.”
Also on the ballot: Republican Peter Kopsaftis of South Barrington and Libertarian Michael Murphy. Pappas is endorsed.
The county clerk’s race pits Democratic incumbent Karen Yarbrough against Republican Tony Peraica, a lawyer and former Cook County commissioner. Libertarian Joseph Schreiner is also on the ballot.
In 2020, a federal judge castigated Yarbrough for violating anti-patronage hiring rules, saying she disregarded requirements to post jobs and favored people with political connections.
The judge put Yarbrough’s office under court oversight. She faced similar accusations in her previous elected post, when she was county recorder of deeds.
The recorder and clerk jobs are combined now. As clerk, Yarbrough organizes suburban elections, maintains various county records and records property ownership and liens. Yarbrough’s history of clout-hiring accusations troubles us. Peraica says he wants to transition more operations currently done in-person at the counter to the office’s website, to make those tasks more convenient and less costly to taxpayers.
Our endorsement goes to Peraica.
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