In the State of Illinois, non-home rule units of government located in counties subject to the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law (PTELL) are limited in the size of their annual property tax extension to 5% or the increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), whichever is less. However, the limitation is subject to some exceptions and can be increased by referendum. The Forest Preserve District of Cook County is asking taxpayers for a larger levy to pay for pensions and a large backlog of land…
In a position statement released yesterday, the Civic Federation announced it supports passage of the Forest Preserve District of Cook County’s (FPDCC) property tax extension limitation law (PTELL) referendum that will be on the November 8 election ballot for voters in Cook County. The referendum question asks Cook County voters whether the Forest Preserve District’s property tax limiting rate should by increased by 0.025% in property tax levy year 2022, to a total rate of 0.076% of the…
It is conventional wisdom that taxpayers in Illinois pay some of the highest property taxes in the nation. That assertion is borne out in a report released last week by the Tax Foundation. The Foundation’s report provides a county-by-county and state-by-state context for evaluating property tax burden across the United States. Local governments in Illinois rely on the property tax to fund everything from debt to pensions to day-to-day expenses. In tax year 2020 total property tax extensions for…
Click here for a PDF of this issue brief. This post presents information on residential and commercial effective property tax rates in south Cook County municipalities in tax years 2005, 2008, 2011, 2014, 2017 and 2019. These 84 municipalities are all located in the South Cook County Assessment Triad.[1] The report also compares these effective tax rates to those for the City of Chicago in these selected years. Effective property tax rates are a measure of property tax burden for…
The Illinois Property Tax Extension Limitation Law (PTELL) limits the growth of a taxing district’s property tax levy to 5.0% or the rate of inflation, whichever is less.[1] Taxing bodies annually can choose to increase the amount of property tax dollars they seek (the “levy”) up to the PTELL limit, to a lesser amount, or they can forego an increase.[2] The PTELL law applies to all non-home rule jurisdictions, including counties, municipalities and special districts in 39 of the state’s…
Click here to read the full report. Click here to read the press release for this analysis. MAJOR FINDINGS Effective property tax rates are a measure of property tax burden for homeowners and businesses. They translate the tax rates on property tax bills into rates that reflect the percentage of full market value that a property owed in taxes for a given year. This report, produced annually by the Civic Federation, estimates the tax year 2018 (taxes payable in 2019) effective rates for…
Cook County government has historically kept its property tax levy relatively flat, especially when compared to the other largest government bodies in Cook County including the City of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools, both of which have increased their property tax revenue significantly in recent years. A study recently released by Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas finds that total taxes billed by all taxing districts for all property in Cook County increased from $7.85 billion in 2000 (for…
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s proposed budget for the fiscal year starting January 1, 2021 includes a property tax increase of $93.9 million for a total property tax levy of $1.6 billion. This blog post will explore the three component parts of the increase. The City of Chicago, as a home rule unit of government, is not subject to the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law (PTELL) but does have its own self-imposed property tax limitation that is modeled on PTELL. Local governments that are…
The Civic Federation recently released its annual Effective Property Tax Rates report. The report highlights that in 2017 property tax burdens for many communities in the Chicago region declined from the previous year. While analysis of the report often focuses on the 12 Cook County municipalities included in the study, this blog will examine the selected communities in the collar counties. An effective property tax rate is an estimate of the percentage of a property’s full market value owed in…
Now that the Cook County Forest Preserve District’s $124.7 million budget has been approved without the help of a referendum to increase property tax revenue, Forest Preserve District Commissioners acknowledge that the District’s serious financial challenges need to be addressed over the next year. A proposal for a countywide referendum that would have asked voters on the March 2020 primary ballot whether they supported a property tax increase was scrapped without a board vote after Forest…
