Today, Cook County’s assessment system is marked by volatility and unpredictability that creates stress for commercial and residential taxpayers alike. The volume of errors in the underlying data used by the Cook County Assessor has produced assessments that are not credible and do not result in a fair and equitable distribution of the property tax burden. Commercial investors cannot confidently estimate future property tax costs, which discourages investment and slows economic growth. Residential taxpayers have been subjected to wild swings in assessed value and a tax burden increasingly disconnected from actual market conditions.

As a result, we are losing taxpayer confidence in our property tax assessment system. Most taxpayers have now received their most recent property tax bill, and—just like in previous years—many were met with an unwelcome surprise increase. These dramatic swings in assessed value and the resulting instability in tax bills have become intolerable. I recently attended an event in North Lawndale where taxpayers, after seeing their property tax burden double, chose to burn their property tax bills in protest.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

The changes I plan to bring to the Cook County Assessor’s Office are not radical or extraordinary. I want to return to generally accepted appraisal principles and the assessment best practices I’ve relied on throughout my thirty-year career. If your property has not experienced dramatic market appreciation, you should not be forced to endure dramatic increases in assessed value. Put simply: I intend to make the Cook County Assessor’s Office boring again—predictable, professional, and accurate.

The primary duty of any assessor—including the Cook County Assessor—is to discover, list, and value all property in the jurisdiction. It’s a foundational concept that every assessment professional learns on day one:

• Discover — Identify all taxable property in the taxing district.

• List — Photograph, measure, describe, and record property details accurately.

• Value — Assign a fair and accurate value to every assessable property.

The incumbent County Assessor is failing in all three of these core duties.

First, building permit data has been shared with the Assessor’s Office, but it has been ignored—leaving billions of dollars in taxable property off the tax rolls. That decision shifts the burden onto everyone else, forcing remaining taxpayers to pay more than their fair share.

Second, even among the properties that are on the tax rolls, roughly forty percent lack a current or accurate property sketch and description. That missing and unreliable information leads to inaccurate assessments and volatile, unpredictable swings in individual tax bills.

Third, without complete and accurate data, the Assessor cannot produce credible assessments for Cook County taxpayers—no matter what valuation model is used.

Cook County taxpayers deserve a property tax assessment they can trust—one free from unsupported spikes and destabilizing surprises. Restoring that trust will require an assessor willing to roll up their sleeves and clean up the underlying data used to produce assessments. It will require a return to the basics and to established principles of real estate valuation. And it will require experienced, accountable leadership.