Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s recent statements oversimplify the property tax system and mischaracterize the role of the Cook County Board of Review.
Taxpayers received their property tax bills months late, and for many households, those bills were significantly higher than in previous years.
Political finger-pointing will not lower those bills. Blaming another county agency does nothing to help families worried about losing their homes.
As elected officials, our responsibility is to represent the people we serve and protect Cook County residents from being priced out of their neighborhoods.
Meaningful reform is needed to protect long-time homeowners, seniors on fixed incomes and families facing displacement due to rising costs and gentrification.
Taxpayers on the South and West sides face the greatest pressure. Between 2023 and 2024, more than 37,000 residential properties in these communities saw their assessments more than double, producing tax bills many households simply cannot afford.
Attributing this entirely to the Board of Review ignores how the property tax system actually functions.
Claims the Board of Review unfairly reduces commercial assessments assume the assessor’s original valuations are always correct. They are not. The assessor relies on mass appraisal techniques that estimate values across thousands of properties.
Appeals to the Board of Review often include verified, property-specific evidence, such as income and expense data, which the law requires us to consider. This information is essential to applying industry-standard valuation methods and reaching accurate results.
The assessor’s office has not effectively communicated its valuation methodologies to the Board of Review. As the office responsible for setting assessments countywide, it must share that information with the Board of Review, which is legally tasked with evaluating assessments when taxpayers challenge them.
It is important to clarify the Board of Review’s role. We do not raise taxes, shift the tax burden or set tax policy. Our responsibility is to ensure assessments are accurate, uniform and supported by market evidence.
When an assessment exceeds a property’s market value, taxpayers have a constitutional right to appeal. When we grant an appeal, we correct an error. We do not issue tax breaks.
Families on the South and West sides are feeling the strain of rising property taxes. As a commissioner on the Board of Review, my priority remains clear to protect taxpayers and ensure assessments are fair, accurate and grounded in the law.
Samantha Steele, commissioner, assessment administration specialist, Cook County Board of Review
Boost care for terminally ill with ‘right-to-die’ law
Gov. JB Pritzker signed the “medical aid-in-dying” bill. Proponents hail this as a victory for autonomy. As a medical student, I see it as a profound injury to both patients and physicians.
Some patients in other states have chosen death not primarily due to physical pain but due to an inability to engage in meaningful activities and a fear of being a burden.
These are forms of suffering that call for committed accompaniment by the community, not lethal medication. In an era of loneliness and financial strain, offering a “quick exit” creates a subtle, coercive pressure on the vulnerable that no legal safeguard can prevent.
This law also wounds physicians, many of whom are already experiencing burnout and alienation from their work. The law deepens this crisis by making us abandon our profession’s centuries-old commitment to doing no harm.
In its place, it teaches us that we can achieve our goal by facilitating the death of our patients — and requires that we actively participate in this process, at least through referral.
It creates a double standard: We offer aggressive suicide prevention to the healthy, viewing their deaths as tragedies to be avoided, yet offer suicide assistance to the sick, viewing their deaths as reasonable choices to be facilitated. This distinction signals the state considers certain lives to be less worthy of protection than the rest and expects physicians to behave accordingly.
This damages the relationship of trust at the heart of medical care and especially threatens patients with disabilities. In the words of one disabled activist, “It is a short journey from believing disability makes you less human to thinking that it is better to be dead than disabled.”
Now that this bill is law, we must urgently address the upstream causes of this desire. We must demand robust investment in high-quality hospice and palliative care that supports dignified care for terminally ill patients.
We must build a system that supports family caregivers, helps those who suffer to find meaning amid limitation and gives physicians the time and space to be fully present to their dying patients.
The law purports to “[uphold] the highest standard of medical care,” but a true care plan never seeks to eliminate suffering by eliminating the sufferer. Every patient in Illinois deserves a physician who will show true compassion: who will “suffer with” them until the end.
Sofia Carozza, Ph.D., medical student, University of Chicago
Want to feel safer on CTA, city neighborhoods
For years, many of us public transit riders have been asking for more safety and security on the CTA, but it took (what I believe is) feigned concern from the Washington Republican cabal to get anything done.
Unfortunately, the CTA has been given a 90-day extension to submit a safety plan acceptable to the feds.
Hey, Washington! While you’re at it, please take an even deeper look at Chicago residents’ safety and force City Hall to bring back ShotSpotter.
Michael Pearson, Englewood