Chicago City Wire

Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios is touting his ongoing mission to modernize and advance County Assessment practices.

In a press release, Berrios said his efforts over the past seven years have gone a long way toward overcoming “systemic challenges” that have existed for the department over the last four decades.

Three years after taking over the assessor’s office in 2010, Berrios's office partnered with the County’s Bureau of Technology office run by Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle to begin instituting technical upgrades aimed at improving property assessment practices across the county, according to the release.

Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios

Two years later, Tyler Technologies was awarded the contract to implement a new integrated property tax system that linked together all the various agencies.

In the latter part of 2017, Preckwinkle and Berrios moved to work with the not-for-profit Civic Consulting Alliance (CCA) in a pro bono agreement to evaluate and help improve the residential portion of the assessment system.

Berrios said he also took on the added commitment of “fully implementing whatever changes possible which the analysis might indicate are needed to bring Cook County in line with industry-accepted norms.”

All parties ultimately agreed to a plan that "identifies a neutral, national expert on residential assessment; defines goals, measures and target ranges for evaluating the residential assessment system; and evaluates the performance of the Cook County residential assessment system at each stage of the process against these measures and target ranges," according to the release.

In addition, all those involved have also agreed on target ranges for each measure, with the parameters being directly drawn from established industry standards and the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO), the release said.

With the results expected over the next few weeks, the measurement of the performance of the assessment process has already commenced relying on information Berrios’ office has supplied.