“It is the first attempt to quantify the impact of well-documented disparities in the county’s assessment process, a topic that has dominated the re-election campaign of besieged Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios. The report will provide more fodder for his two challengers, Fritz Kaegi and Andrea Ralia, who are trying to unseat Berrios in the March 20 Democratic primary.”
“’We don’t need another study to tell us the system stinks,’ said University of Chicago public policy professor Christopher Berry, who studied the system while developing a new residential valuation model for the county that was never implemented. ‘If Toni Preckwinkle doesn’t believe the studies already done by the University of Chicago, the University of Illinois, the Illinois Department of Revenue and the Tribune, then she is simply choosing not to see the truth right in front of her face. She is siding with Joe Berrios over the truth, and over her constituents.’”
“An unprecedented analysis by the Tribune reveals that for years the county’s property tax system created an unequal burden on residents, handing huge financial breaks to homeowners who are well-off while punishing those who have the least, particularly people living in minority communities.”
“A Tribune investigative team, led by Jason Grotto and with the assistance of the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy, just dropped a massive and fascinating report on the property tax system in Cook County and how assessments are skewed to undervalue expensive homes and overvalue inexpensive ones.”