Fritz Kaegi owes the public an apology and should step down
Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi put the interests of the business community before th einterests of homeowners. Everyone agrees he shifted the tax burden from businesses to homeowners
By Ray Hanania
FREE/Politics Assessments/Friday AUgust 2, 2024
Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi wants you to believe that he cares about the taxpayers and issues press releases urging all kinds of things, like changing tax exemptions for homeowners.
Kaegi wants you to believe that he is a champion of homeowner rights.
But the truth is that Kaegi is not a champion of homeowner rights. He is a champion of the business community. And, he is also not very good at doing his job as county assessor.
Cook County collects taxes based on the “assessments” of properties, businesses or homes. An assessment is an estimate of what the value of the property might be, based on size, neighborhood, improvements and on the assessments of similar homes in the neighborhood where the home is located.
The assessment is not the tax but it determines the tax. The higher the assessment, the more property taxes the owner pays.
Assessments usually go up one or two percent every re-assessment period which takes place every three years. Cook County divides the assessment regions doing them separately.
But in the last year, homeowners were slammed by a shocking and dramatic increase in their property assessments which have gone up between 25 and 50 percent. In some cases, the assessments on homes have gone up 100 percent, forcing the homeowners to consider selling their properties because the taxes are so high. For others it is even more severe.
We’re talking about property taxes on homes going up as much as $5,000 to $25,000 in a year.
Why? There are two reasons. First, Kaegi doesn’t understand Cook County’s assessment process, according to many former employees of the Assessor’s office who have repeatedly complained about his ineptitude. Kaegi brags that he is a former “mutual fund portfolio manager and analyst” who “helped people” save for retirement.
Basically, that means he collected a fee from giving advice on their investments, profiting off of the complexity of investments for most Americans. And he made a fortune at it, profiting from “helping” people “save for their retirement.”
Kaegi made so much money he financed his own campaign for office in 2017 winning the Democratic Primary election in March 2018. Kaegi is like “Daddy War Bucks” Governor J.B. Pritzker, who is trying to buy his way into the vice presidency.
It’s a breed of political robber barons who buy their way into public office to help their friends. He spent a lot of his money trying to eliminate people from the ballot tying them up in complex legal challenges, seeking to limit the public’s right to choose their officials. In 2018, Kaegi became the Democratic Party nominee with only 45 percent of the vote, not a mandate at all.
The second reason is directly Kaegi’s fault because he made a decision to shift the burden of taxes from businesses to homeowners.
It was intentional and it was unjustified.
The economy is bad, but the politicians insist it is “good.” But we know the economy is bad because many businesses are struggling, and they have raised prices on goods dramatically.
What used to cost $250 for groceries has increased to more than $425. Gasoline prices have skyrocketed. Meanwhile, your wages have remained relatively stagnant, and interest rates on services like credit cards and borrowing have increased dramatically, too.
So Kaegi decided to help businesses by shifting the balance of the assessments. He reduced the assessments on businesses, on average, by 14 percent, and he increased the assessments on homes, on average, by 12 percent.
The result is the shocking numbers that screamed at you when you opened your property tax bills. They have skyrocketed beyond the means of most homeowners.
I get that businesses need help. But the problem isn’t that homeowners haven’t been paying their share. They have been paying far more than their share. The problem is that governments have increased taxes across the board.
Illinois ranks as the 48th worst state. when it comes to taxing its citizens. It’s a little better on crime, mainly because the more people a state loses to crimes, the more money it loses in taxes.
A typical family — that lives in a home — loses an average of $10,463 to taxes, or an average of 15 percent of their income. Click here to read it and weep.
Kaegi refuses to take responsibility for his actions and continues to try to blame it on other factors and on other agencies.
Kaegi is unlike other Cook County officials who are doing everything possible to reduce the burden on homeowners.
Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas has been working with municipalities, organizations throughout the county to return tax overpayments. Hundreds of millions of dollars have been returned ot the taxpayers.
Pappas has been a county official for decades, since the 1990s and she has said she has never seen assessments go up as much as they have in the past several years.
Pappas completed a study which showed that property tax bills in the south and southwest suburbs increased, on average, nearly 20 percent. It’s “the highest increase in 30 years,” she said.
You can go to her website and get detailed information by clicking here.
Pappas cares about homeowners and isn’t afraid to fight for their rights.
Despite all these problems, Kaegi refuses to address the issues. Instead, he tells homeowners to appeal the increases, the majority of appeals he then rejects with no explanation.
His staff will respond, “Oh you are wrong,” but they won’t show any data whatsoever. That’s because Kaegi can’t justify what he did himself.
He shifted the burden from businesses and put the onus on homeowners.
You can bet the businesses and corporations that are getting the “Kaegi Tax Break” will be lining up to donate money to his re-election efforts in just over two years.
He’s hoping that homeowners are too stupid to remember in the March 2026 Democratic Primary and November 2026 General elections what he did.
But, I will make sure to remind you.
Kaegi has put homeowners in Cook County in peril of losing their homes because of his formula that created an exorbitant tax they simply cannot afford. Plus, trying to sell a property with exorbitant taxes is yet another hardship being faced. Thank you for this article & please keep reminding homeowners of this horrible assessor before election time.