8 CHICAGO READER | MAY 12, 2006 | SECTION ONE

The Works

By Ben Jorvasky

B ack in November, when hewas looking to build sup-port for his budget, Mayor

Daley promised voters he’d be ontheir side come spring, fighting inSpringfield to extend the so-calledcap on rising property taxes. Butwhen the vote came on May 3,Daley was in the Middle East, farfrom the legislative fray and of nohelp in defending the bill, whichwas soundly defeated. Meanwhile,house speaker Michael Madiganvoted for the measure while play-ing a passive role in its defeat.

As Barb Head, cofounder ofthe Tax Reform Action Coalition,a citywide group, puts it: “Thebottom line is you’re going to paymore—way more—in propertytaxes. We’re all screwed.”

To understand the issuesinvolved in this latest go-round,

determine that your propertyhas doubled in value, from$100,000 to $200,000, you’llwind up paying $12,277 in taxes,a 104 percent increase.

In a sneaky sort of way,reassessment helps elected offi-cials like Daley and the citycouncil pretend they’re keepingtaxes down: the tax rate staysroughly the same year afteryear, while rising assessmentsdo the dirty work of makingsure you pay more. In its lastbudget statement, for instance,the city bragged that “the 2006budget contains no increase inthe property tax for the thirdyear in a row. Since 1989,Mayor Daley has held anyincrease in city property taxesto an average of about one per-cent a year, which is well below

Mum’s the WordMayor Daley and Michael Madigan stayed strategically silent on the latest attempt at property tax relief.

it’s helpful to know a thing or twoabout our needlessly complicatedproperty tax system. Explained inits simplest form, your propertytax is figured by multiplying thetax rate (6.28 percent) againstthe value of your home, which isdetermined by Cook Countyassessor James Houlihan, minusan exemption—formerly $4,500.So if the assessor puts the valueof your property at $100,000,you subtract $4,500 and multi-ply that total, $95,500, by 6.28percent, leaving you with a taxbill of $5,997.

Of course, your home’s valuedoesn’t remain the same yearafter year. Every three yearsHoulihan’s number crunchersreassess property values byreviewing property salesthroughout the county. If they

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the rate of inflation. Holdingthe line on property taxesincreases government efficiencyand keeps Chicago neighbor-hoods affordable for residents.”In reality, property taxes havegone up dramatically since1989, one reason many long-time residents in gentrifyingneighborhoods have beenforced to leave their homes.

In 2003 Houlihan himselfstepped in to try and fix the prob-lem of rising assessments, propos-ing a state law that would cap allreassessment increases at 7 per-cent per each three-year period.Under Houlihan’s plan, if yourhome was assessed at $100,000,its reassessment value would becapped at $107,000. Your taxeswould rise from $6,280 to$6,719—$5,558 less than what

In a sneaky sort of way, reassess-ment helps electedofficials like Daleyand the city councilpretend they’rekeeping taxesdown.

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you’d pay if your assessment haddoubled without the cap.

Houlihan’s proposal put Daleyin a bind. He didn’t want to lookunsympathetic to besieged tax-payers, but he couldn’t afford tolose the revenues that unfetteredreassessments bring in. For bet-ter or worse, the city is hookedon property taxes, which pay forschools and parks and pensionsand almost all the city’s capitalbudget. Just as important, prop-erty tax revenues fund the city’s140-plus tax increment financ-ing districts, the piggy banksDaley needs to keep his alder-men content. So Daley,Madigan, and state senate presi-dent Emil Jones stitched togeth-er a cockamamie alternative.Instead of capping assessments,they proposed “capping” proper-ty taxes by raising the homeowner’s exemption to $20,000for a period of three years.Going back to our example, ahome owner whose property wasreassessed at $200,000 wouldwind up paying $11,304 in prop-erty taxes—considerably morethan what he’d pay underHoulihan’s proposal, but a sav-

Michael Madigan, Mayor Daleycontinued on page 10

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The Works

ings of almost $1,000 from whathe would have paid without theincreased exemption.

The revised plan, passed in thespring of 2004 and signed intolaw that summer by GovernorBlagojevich, was flawed. It gaveno protection to commercialproperty owners, many of whosetaxes rose considerably. Nor didit offer much relief for homeowners in neighborhoods likeEdgewater, North Center, andBronzeville, where some assess-ments soared so high the exemp-tion was no real help. In effect

the change didn’t so much cutproperty taxes as shift the bur-den of paying them: roughly 20percent of the city’s taxpayerswound up paying increases ofmore than 50 percent. Moreover,the plan was always a sunset pro-vision—it expires next year.

In March the senate passed ameasure that would have raisedthe exemption to $60,000 forthe next three years. But the billstalled in the house. “I know thisis not a perfect piece of legisla-tion,” says state rep JohnFritchey, one of the house’s chiefsponsors of the bill. “But we have

to do something. We can’t havepeople having to sell their homes’cause they can’t pay their taxes.”

Publicly, Madigan, who con-trols the house, was silent on thebill as it came up for a vote,offering neither support noropposition. Daley likewise tookno stand in the debate. In theabsence of strong leadershipfrom Daley or Madigan, repswere free to vote as they pleased,and the measure fell far short ofthe 60 votes it needed for pas-sage (there were 37 votes for, 69against, and 6 votes of present).Downstate reps, both Democratsand Republicans, largely votedagainst it, suspicious of any pro-posal that would offer tax breaksfor Chicago. State rep DanBurke, the brother of 14th Wardalderman Ed Burke, votedagainst it. And none of the city’sblack state reps, who for themost part represent impover-ished communities on the southand west sides, voted for it.

Ken Dunkin, whose districtstretches from Cabrini-Green tothe near south side, says he votedagainst the bill because it doesn’tprovide enough protection forthose who don’t own their homes:large apartment units are consid-ered commercial property, andtax increases get passed on to ten-ants. “That bill has a dispropor-tionate impact on renters on thesouth side,” he says. His explana-tion, like the votes of the otherblack reps, leaves many observersbaffled. Despite the bill’s flaws, itdid offer relief for home owners inneighborhoods like Englewood,Bronzeville, South Shore,Woodlawn, and Lawndale, whowill get clobbered if the exemp-tion reverts to $4,500.

“You’d think they’d vote for itjust out of political self-interest,”says one northwest-side rep. “Idon’t know if a lot of legislatorsunderstand the bill—I don’tknow who they’re listening to. Ido know they’ll be howling likeeveryone else when they get theirreassessment notices.”

For the record, no one’s fooledby Madigan’s vote in favor of thebill. “Of course he voted for it—his constituents would havelynched him if he hadn’t,” saysthe legislator with a laugh. “Whynot vote for it? He knew it wasgoing to lose.”

Most legislative insiders thinkDaley and Madigan are playing await-and-see game on the issue.If the citizenry rises up angry asreassessment notices come out,Daley and Madigan will probablyback some sort of cap orincreased exemption come fall—just in time for the mayor’sreelection campaign.

Fritchey predicts the bill willpass in November’s veto session.And Head vows to keep the heaton. “We’re going to have a rollingrevolt,” she says. “As assessmentnotices come out, we will ask peo-ple to make copies and send themto their elected officials, includingthe mayor, the aldermen, and thestate reps. We’ll keep up the pres-sure all summer long.” v

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