TAXES
Record property tax increases slam Chicago homeowners. Chicago homeowners are being walloped with a record property tax hike, with some of the city’s poorest neighborhoods absorbing the steepest increases even as downtown office owners see their bills fall, according to new data from the Cook County treasurer’s office.
An analysis from Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas’ office found the median property tax bill for a Chicago homeowner jumped 16.7% since last year, the largest percentage increase in at least 30 years. The surge follows similar spikes in Cook County’s north and south suburbs over the last two years and complicates the job of the Chicago City Council as it considers tax hikes to help close a historic budget gap.
The long-awaited second installment of Cook County property tax bills was mailed to property owners on Friday and is due Dec. 15. Across the county, residential and commercial property owners are being billed a total of $19.2 billion, a nearly 5% increase from last year. But the burden is falling unequally. […]
As the Illinois Answers Project and Chicago Tribune reported in September, homeowners on the South and West sides were bracing for property tax hikes after sharp assessment increases in many of those neighborhoods. The treasurer’s report confirms those fears — and highlights another powerful force behind the shift: a steep drop in the value of Loop office towers, retail properties, hotels and restaurants. The collective tax bills for those commercial properties dropped by $129 million, driven by plunging property values, effectively shifting more of the tax burden onto Chicago’s homeowners.
“When you have a vacancy rate in commercial properties the way we do in the city right now, commercial (valuations are) going to go down,” Pappas said in an interview Friday. “So, who has to pick it up? It’s like a scale. If … one side goes down, the other goes up.”
Median residential bills in nine predominantly Black Chicago community areas jumped by more than 50% compared with last year, according to the treasurer’s analysis. In West Garfield Park, the median homeowner’s bill more than doubled, rising from $1,482 to $3,448. North Lawndale saw a similar hike, with the median bill increasing from $1,905 to $3,791.
State Rep. Chris Miller Slammed Democrats
“The radical Democrats keep squeezing taxes from hard-working families in Illinois to cover the rising costs of illegal immigrants,” said Rep. Miller. “We have blatant lies fed to us by Pritzker and Democrats about how state funds are being used. Unfortunately, the taxpayers have been a piggy bank for Pritzker, and he just can’t keep his hands out of their hard-earned money.”
The median residential bill in the Chicago community areas of Englewood, West Pullman, West Englewood, Fuller Park, New City, East Garfield Park and Riverdale each increased between 54% and 82%. Even outside those neighborhoods, South and West Side homeowners faced steeper increases than the rest of the city.
Read more from the Chicago Tribune.
ENERGY
ICC approves another hike in Ameren natural gas rates. 2.3 million customers, including many homes in Downstate Illinois, are slated to pay $150 million more for the natural gas many of them use for cooking and heating. The rate hike was awarded to Ameren, the major St. Louis-based utility holding company that provides electricity and natural gas to much of Downstate Illinois.
“Illinois baseload generation has been gutted because of radical policies and fantasies that have destroyed supply and demand,” said Miller. “Our state had stable, reliable, and cheap energy but those days are long gone because of the policies that continue to chase a green fantasy. Families and businesses are already paying extremely high prices for energy and now the Democrats have turned a new page of screwing consumers over with more energy scams.”
Other Illinois customers buy natural gas from Chicago-based Peoples Gas (a subsidiary of the WEC Energy Group) and from suburban Chicago-based Nicor Gas (a subsidiary of the Southern Co.) and North Shore Gas (a subsidiary of Peoples Gas). All three firms have recently sought, or are seeking, natural gas rate hikes.
The ICC-approved rate hike for Ameren natural gas customers was announced on Wednesday, November 19.