Realtor Terry Pounds Comments Negatively on McHenry Township Assessments

Realtor Terry Pounds offered the following commentary on a property tax relief bill that State Rep. David McSweeney has introduced Saturday: House Bill 358 permanently freezes property tax rates in Illinois for all units of government beginning in tax year … Continue reading

Assessment Quality in McHenry County After the Last Township Election

Every so often, it seems useful to share measurements of assessment quality among McHenry County Townships. These are basically measures of the work of township assessors, although the quality of their work can be increased or decreased by changes made … Continue reading

County Releases Assessment Quality Statistics

Assessors use something called a “Coefficient of Dispersion” to measure the quality of assessments. It’s something like the margin of error used in political polls. The McHenry County Supervisor of Assessments has provided the following data from 2015.  This is … Continue reading

Lake County Township Assessors Sue Supervisor of Assessments

A press release from several Lake County Township Assessors: Several elected township assessors and taxpayers file federal lawsuit against Lake County, Martin Paulson, the Lake County Chief County Assessment Officer and the Lake County Board of Review CHICAGO, IL. – Five elected … Continue reading

Will Higher Assessments Lead to Higher Taxes?

Real estate assessments are being hiked by 8% in a lot of townships. That has to be scaring people who don’t understand the property tax system. There are two parts to the tax bill: the assessment the tax rate On … Continue reading

Village of Union Doesn’t Understand Tax Cap

Under the Property Tax Cap, a non-Home Rule Unit (think municipalities over 25,000 people like Chicago, Crystal Lake and McHenry, plus municipalities who have approved Home Rule by referendum vote lie Barrington Hills) may not raise its tax levy by … Continue reading

Local School Finances – How to Probe

Crack researcher Susan Handelsmann of rural Woodstock has put together a “how to” piece about figuring out what your school board has done with school finances. It is presented below for McHenry Grade School District 15, but can be adapted … Continue reading

Grafton Township Assessor Al Zielinski Not Happy with Supervisor of Assessments

An email from Grafton Township Assessor Al Zielinski: Appealing your 2014 taxes and your 2015 assessments Personally and via my presentations, I’ve explained and cautioned about the assessment games played at the county level. However, I never imagined to what … Continue reading

New, Free Property Info Tool for McHenry County

A press release from McHenry County: McHenry County introduces new, free “Online Property Inquiry” tool to County website The new, free “Online Property Inquiry” tool provides the public with an easy-to-use mechanism to access property parcel and tax information. This one-stop shop … Continue reading

Grafton Township Assessor Faces Taxpayers

More people showed up at a property tax meeting with Grafton Township Assessor Al Zielinski Wednesday night than attended the AFSCME union rally in the Woodstock Square. The Lakewood Village Board indicated last month that it would invited Zielinski to … Continue reading

Serwatka Meeting Features Grafton Township Assessor

From Lakewood Village Trustee Paul Serwatka: Town Hall Meeting with Grafton Township Tax Assessor As promised, on Wednesday, June 10th at 7 pm, I will be hosting our very first “WE ARE LAKEWOOD” informational Town hall meeting. Grab your property … Continue reading

Lakewood Swears In Trustees, Talk Taxes, Gravel

The Lakewood Village Trustees elected last month were sworn in Tuesday night. Re-elected were Carl Davis and Ken Santowski. They were joined by newcomer Paul Serwatka, who got more votes than any other candidate and did so without having his … Continue reading

A Benefit of Consolidating Township Governments

Back in the 1970’s, Algonquin Township Assessor Forrest Hare computerized his office, probably the first to do so in the State of Illinois. He also took an interest in how assessment could be made more accurate. Hare looked at measures … Continue reading