Cook County property tax bills will be late again

Property tax bills owed by Cook County residents and business owners are once again landing in mailboxes months later than usual.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle announced Wednesday that second installment property tax bills for the 2022 tax year are expected to be ready Nov. 1 and due Dec. 1.

It’s an improvement compared to last year’s delay: Bills were not ready until late November and were due by Dec. 31. The year before, second installment bills were due two months later than usual.

For most of the previous decade, second installment bills have usually been mailed in July and due by Aug. 1. But technological issues between Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s office and the three-member Board of Review, which hears assessment appeals, proliferated during the COVID-19 pandemic, leading to a monthslong delay and weeks of finger-pointing between Kaegi and BOR Commissioner Larry Rogers Jr.

Those technological issues are not yet resolved, and because of the rolling nature of the assessment and billing cycles countywide, officials predicted the situation would improve this year but would not yet return to normal.

“The COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with a critical overhaul of the technological backbone of the system, has had a dramatic impact on the county’s property tax processes and timelines. County officials will continue to work closely with taxing bodies and property owners to keep them informed of key dates,” Preckwinkle’s office said in the Wednesday release announcing this year’s due dates.

The various offices responsible for property taxation — including a working group Preckwinkle convened — rushed last year to ensure bills would be due by Dec. 31 so property owners could have their payments deducted in their annual income tax filings.

Aside from the uncertainty for individual taxpayers, the delay created other headaches: Taxing bodies such as school districts, villages and libraries that counted on property tax receipts to fund operations had to wait several months — in some cases borrowing from the county to pay for ongoing operations — to receive funds. Real estate agents trying to finalize home sales could not estimate final bills and closing costs.