Chicago: Crook County assessments are a racket, they enrich Boss Madigan and other connected attorneys

The Cook County Assessor is Joseph Berrios, the chairman of the Chicago Machine, better known as the Cook County Regular Democratic. There has never been a Republican assessor.

What does the assessor do? He determines the value of property, thus setting the price to be paid in taxes. The office of the Cook County Assessor has always been a cash cow for the Democrats. Businesses, wealthy individuals, and property tax attorneys seeking favors contribute generously to the assessor's campaign fund and that of the Machine.

Problica, in a wonky but essential read, explains how bad it is in Crook County.
From its report:

First-pass values represent the starting point of the assessment process. They are supposed to be the assessor’s best estimate of what properties would fetch in the open market.

More...

The analysis shows a large percentage of first-pass reassessments under Berrios remained the same over multiple reassessment periods. For example, 51 percent of the approximately 40,000 PINs in the analysis had the same first-pass value for the 2012 reassessment as the 2009 reassessment. For the 2015 reassessment, 39 percent of first-pass values were identical to the 2012 reassessment. Twenty-three percent of first-pass values were the same for all three reassessment periods.

By comparison, just 1 percent of first-pass values for the 2003, 2006 and 2009 reassessments conducted under Houlihan stayed the same from one reassessment to the next.

In cases when the first-pass values didn’t change, many of the property owners filed appeals and won reductions that lowered their tax bill – only to see the value snap right back to the same first-pass value during the next reassessment.

Hmm...is Berrios seeking more favors?

Of course there is a Boss Michael Madigan tie-in. Madigan has been speaker of the state House for an unprecedented 32 of the last 34 years. He's been chairman of the state Democratic Party for twenty years. Reuters says he is 'the man behind the fiscal fiasco in Illinois.'

What about Madigan?

Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan’s six-member law firm has filed appeals on nearly $8.6 billion in commercial and industrial assessed value since Berrios took office. That is the highest of any firm in the analysis. During that time, Madigan & Getzendanner won reductions totaling 20 percent of that value, or more than $1.7 billion.

As WIND-AM radio host says, 'Illinois isn't broken. It's fixed.'

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• Cook County Dem Party boss has 15 members of his family on gov't payroll