{"id":204123,"date":"2025-09-06T04:54:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-06T04:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/204123\/"},"modified":"2025-09-06T04:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-06T04:54:10","slug":"study-finds-kaegi-has-improved-fairness-in-cook-county-property-assessments","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/204123\/","title":{"rendered":"Study finds Kaegi has improved fairness in Cook County property assessments"},"content":{"rendered":"

Assessor Fritz Kaegi has \u201cclearly improved\u201d the fairness of Cook County\u2019s property tax assessment system over his two terms, according to a new study<\/a> crediting his office with reversing problems that led to the overvaluation of lower-priced homes and the undervaluation of high-priced homes.<\/p>\n

Those changes brought the office \u201cwithin industry standards\u201d for fairness in assessing homes \u201cfor the first time in years,\u201d according to the report by University of Chicago professor Christopher Berry.<\/p>\n

Now up for a third term, Kaegi has certainly made the system more fair by treating more homeowners equally, but has not necessarily become more accurate, the report said. Compared with sales prices, residential properties \u201care increasingly under-assessed on average,\u201d it found.<\/p>\n

Berry, director of the U. of C.\u2019s Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, acknowledged taxpayers might be skeptical of the findings. \u201cHow can Kaegi be making assessments more fair, when my tax bill is going up?\u201d Berry said in an interview with the Tribune.<\/p>\n

Homeowners were unlikely to feel the difference because property tax levies set by local governments each year have continued to rise, he noted. The city of Chicago\u2019s levy has gone up by 19% since 2018. The Chicago Public Schools levy has gone up by 24%.<\/p>\n

Even so, \u201cthe important thing is the assessments don\u2019t determine whether tax bills are going up or down on average, just how it\u2019s spread amongst properties,\u201d Berry said.<\/p>\n

Many other factors play into how bills are ultimately calculated. Tax breaks shift the burden between properties by billions each year. So do the final assessments for big commercial properties. Berry\u2019s study focused on homes, smaller apartments, and condos and did not include larger apartment buildings, nor other commercial properties like warehouses, factories and stores.<\/p>\n

Berry has studied property assessment and taxation issues nationally and in Cook County. In 2010, he was tapped to help develop an assessment model for the assessor\u2019s office to improve fairness and accuracy. It was never fully implemented under Kaegi\u2019s predecessor, Joe Berrios, a Tribune and ProPublica investigation<\/a> found.<\/p>\n

That meant \u201cresidents in working-class neighborhoods were more likely to receive property tax bills that assumed their homes were worth more than their true market value,\u201d the Tribune reported, while homeowners in wealthier and mostly white areas \u201ccaught a break because property taxes weren\u2019t based on the full value of their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"CandidateCandidate for Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi celebrates with “Chuy” Garcia’s wife, Evelyn Chinea as he wins the nomination for Cook County Assessor on election night celebration, March 20, 2018 in Chicago. (Erin Hooley\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Those findings contributed to Berrios\u2019 electoral defeat and Kaegi\u2019s victory in 2018. He won again in 2022.<\/p>\n

Despite that incumbency, Cook County Democrats opted earlier this summer to endorse someone else, Lyons Township Assessor Pat Hynes, in the March 2026 primary election. Several party officials argued Kaegi\u2019s valuations were unpredictable and faulted his management of certain tax breaks.<\/p>\n

Hynes has also argued the misclassification of hundreds of properties<\/a> and other suburban over-assessments<\/a> by Kaegi\u2019s office also suggest there are broader problems with his practices.<\/p>\n

But one of Kaegi\u2019s top arguments is that he\u2019s improved on Berrios\u2019 \u201cregressive\u201d assessments. The analysis does include a mix of modelings that Kaegi inherited that were phased out in his first three years in office. His first year in 2019, for example, Berrios\u2019 model was still in place.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnder the old system, when mansions and luxury condos weren\u2019t taxed at their real value, working-class families had to make up for it. It was like Robin Hood in reverse,\u201d Kaegi said in a Friday release celebrating their success in fixing \u201cthat fundamental unfairness.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berry\u2019s study found on average the lowest-valued homes were assessed at 125% of what they\u2019d actually fetch on the market during Berrios\u2019 last term, while the most expensive homes were assessed at only 82% of their sales prices. It was a similar story for the lowest-priced condos.<\/p>\n

Regressive assessments lead to high-value homeowners paying too little and low-value homeowners paying too much when bills are calculated. During Berrios\u2019 first and second terms, the most valuable homes \u2014 in the top 10% \u2014 were undertaxed by $1.7 billion, Berry found after comparing actual tax bills with what the bills would have been if the assessment had matched comparable sales prices. That analysis did not include the impact of exemptions.<\/p>\n

\u201cTax shifting has been dramatically reduced and nearly eliminated under Kaegi,\u201d according to the report. \u201cIf anything, top-end properties have been slightly over-taxed, but the shift has been relatively small relative to the Berrios numbers.\u201d<\/p>\n

Berry estimates the top-end properties were over-taxed by $219 million over Kaegi\u2019s two terms, and over-taxation of low- and middle-priced homes has been $1.9 billion lower.<\/p>\n

\"CookCook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi speaks about the results of the triennial reassessment and proposed property tax relief legislation on Jan. 29, 2025, at the County Building. (Brian Cassella\/Chicago Tribune)<\/p>\n

Still, the underassessment of residential properties has gotten slightly worse under Kaegi. In Cook County, homes are supposed to be assessed at 10% of their market value. Under Berrios, the measure of that accuracy \u2014 the median assessment ratio \u2014 was 8.8%. Under Kaegi it fell to 8.6% in his first term and 8.2% in his second term, Berry\u2019s analysis found. His previous analyses have found while Kaegi has improved on certain accuracy measurements, he is still outside of some industry standards<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Illinois Department of Revenue, which also performs sales ratio studies each year, similarly reported<\/a> homes, condos and smaller apartments were assessed lower than the comparable sales price.<\/p>\n

That lapse is likely driven because of time lags between actual sales and assessments, Kaegi\u2019s office said, an issue that gets worse when market values are increasing faster. Anticipating widespread unemployment, Kaegi also instituted a COVID adjustment in 2020<\/a>, cutting residential assessments considerably.<\/p>\n

In reality, home prices spiked, which Berry said also likely contributed to the gap. Properties in the south suburban portion of the county, where the COVID adjustment was in place for three cycles, had a steeper underassessment gap compared to sales prices during that time, Berry found.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn general, we think data quality has improved under this administration, even if there\u2019s more to be done,\u201d Kaegi spokesman Christian Belanger told the Tribune in response to the report. He noted Kaegi, along with other assessors and academics, is continuing his yearslong push for access to federal appraisal data to further improve accuracy.<\/p>\n

Berry also echoed Kaegi\u2019s contention<\/a> that the Board of Review had reversed many of the assessor\u2019s final valuations of commercial properties. But Berry did not draw conclusions about whose values were ultimately right.<\/p>\n

Commercial assessments have been a political flashpoint for years. Stores, offices and industrial facilities are assessed at 25% of their market value in Cook County, while homes are assessed at 10%, resulting in commercial properties here paying some of the highest effective tax rates<\/a> in the country. Kaegi\u2019s higher commercial assessments are why some major business groups have backed his political opponents.<\/p>\n

A separate, independent study<\/a> comparing sale prices with the valuations of businesses found a mixed bag in terms of which agency had landed on the correct number, on average.<\/p>\n

In the suburbs during the 2020 and 2022 assessment cycles, appeals to the board of review generally knocked commercial values below industry standards for accuracy. In the city in 2021, however, Kaegi overshot values. Appeals to the board brought them closer to their actual sales price.<\/p>\n

Originally Published: September 5, 2025 at 4:23 PM CDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Assessor Fritz Kaegi has \u201cclearly improved\u201d the fairness of Cook County\u2019s property tax assessment system over his two…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":204124,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[11438,14670,14671,14672,14673,12320,14674,14675,14676,960,14677,14678,5404,14679,14680,14720,14681,14682,14684,14721,14685,5386,1818,1370,728,50,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-204123","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-arlington-heights","9":"tag-barrington","10":"tag-berwyn","11":"tag-blue-island","12":"tag-brookfield","13":"tag-buffalo-grove","14":"tag-burbank","15":"tag-burr-ridge","16":"tag-calumet-city","17":"tag-chicago","18":"tag-chicago-heights","19":"tag-cicero","20":"tag-cook-county","21":"tag-country-club-hills","22":"tag-countryside","23":"tag-daily-southtown","24":"tag-deerfield","25":"tag-des-plaines","26":"tag-elgin","27":"tag-elgin-courier-news","28":"tag-elmwood-park","29":"tag-il","30":"tag-illinois","31":"tag-latest-headlines","32":"tag-local-news","33":"tag-news","34":"tag-politics"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115155570723405817","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204123","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=204123"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/204123\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/204124"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=204123"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=204123"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=204123"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}