Tax Time: Most Homeowners to Pay More Despite Lower Property Values

They’re he-ere!

Like clockwork, residents in Will County began receiving their tax bills this week.

For homeowners, the still-sluggish housing market has meant lower property values and lower assessments. But that hasn’t translated to lower tax bills for most residents, a fact that has left some scratching their heads.

Why haven’t your taxes dropped?

In a word, levies. Most taxing bodies haven’t lowered the amount they plan to spend over the next year, which means higher tax rates and, for most homeowners, higher tax bills.

“Even though assessments are down, taxing bodies still need money for services,” said Lockport Township Assessor Debbie Mason. “You don’t want the police department to start making cuts or the fire department … They still need money to run their budgets.”

DuPage Township Assessor John Randall said some homeowners don’t understand why they’re seeing heftier tax bills.

“People forget to look at the tax rate,” he said. “If taxing districts want the same amount of money or more money that they got a year ago and I’m dropping assessments to reflect property values, they’re going to raise their taxes.”

Property assessments, based primarily on the past three years of real estate sales for a given township, are down pretty much across the board with a significantly lower total assessed property value.

“We lowered our township $94 million in assessments for residential,” Mason said. “Every single [homeowner’s property] went down at least 6 percent.” Throughout the township, residential property values are down 6 to 10 percent, she added.

With no real uptick in the real estate market, Mason said next year will likely bring more of the same.

“It looks like we’ll probably have to see a decrease of at least $96 million,” she said.

In DuPage Township, it’s the same story, according to Randall.

“There are 28,500 parcels in the township,” he said. “Last year I lowered assessments on 21,000 of them and I’ll probably lower the assessments on 21,000 next year. We’re trying to reflect real market value.”

This time of year, both Randall and Mason said they’re fielding plenty of calls and emails from confused residents.

“[It happens] all the time,” Mason said. “We’ve had a lot of people come in yelling at us.”

Randall said most residents are understanding once he explains the reason for the heftier bills.

“I don’t have a target on my back,” he said, “and I don’t want to point the finger at anyone else, but I don’t tax people.”

Randall said he’s always happy to explain the how assessments and property taxes work.

“Right this minute, I probably have 10 emails I’m working on,” he said. “We try to answer [residents’] questions as best we can. I feel that the more information I can get into the public’s hands, the better … It’s imperative that the public knows.”

The first installment of Will County property taxes is due June 1, with the second portion due Sept. 1.

Here’s a look how at some tax local rates have changed since 2009: