Chicago City Wire

Cook County Assessor candidate Nico Tsatsoulis said current Assessor Fritz Kaegi is at fault for the delay in determining property tax rates.

While he believes that Illinoisans' concerns relating to their property taxes "are of a different and more fundamental nature than the tax bills being late and who is to blame for that, Tsatsoulis argued that "this fiasco is important in that it is a manifestation of how broken the property assessment process is in Cook County.”  

“Being an outsider, I have no insight into the details of this fiasco regarding the late issuing of Cook County property tax bills,” Tsatsoulis, a Libertarian candidate, said. “During a debate I had with Fritz Kaegi on May 4, 2022, he blamed the problem on the computer system. My response was ‘Fritz, If you are going to blame the computers and you are not going to take responsibility for what is happening, I say you are not fit for this office. Fritz Kaegi came into power with a pandering agenda, purposely deceiving (and continuing to do so) the electorate that their property tax liability is going to be shifted over to 'rich downtown developers,’ and ending up hurting all of us and mostly the poor and the people he claims to help.” 

Cook County's collection this year is nearly 3.5% higher than the year prior.

“The pressing issues relating to property assessments and taxation of properties in Cook County have to do with the extraordinary and unsustainable level of the levy which currently stands at $16 billion and resulting in the second highest effective property tax rate in the nation, the fact that Cook County is the only one out of 102 counties in Illinois that charges commercial properties by 250% more than residential properties, (thus hurting mostly the poor that spend a larger proportion of their income than rich people in buying goods and services from these overtaxed commercial properties) and the fact that assessments coming out of the assessor's office are inconsistent, erratic and arbitrary (by virtue of having governmental bureaucrats trying to replicate market prices, which at best is an exercise in futility),” Tsatsoulis said. 

Tsatsoulis noted that these are the "real issues that are meticulously absent from the agenda of both major parties during past election periods." His campaign, according to him, "focuses on bringing these issues out to the public and aims to initiate an educated public discussion about how to resolve them." 

"I also see my campaign as a referendum to bring California's Proposition 13 type of legislation to Cook County and Illinois, limiting the annual assessment increases and containing the amount of the yearly property tax to 1% of the value of the property,” Tsatsoulis said. “Cash flow issues and the resulting blame game may be marginally important but my view is that we (candidates, press and ultimately the electorate) should focus our attention and energy on the real issues mentioned above.”

The second installment Cook County property tax bills are being delayed this year due to technology updates at Kaegi’s office and under his oversight. The issue is causing a delay in funding of local institutions that rely on property taxes – such as schools, according to Hodges, Loizzi, Eisenhammer, Rodick & Kohn LLP.

Larry Rogers, a member of the Cook County Board of Review, blamed Kaegi for the delay and claimed that he handled the changeover from a mainframe computer to a new property tax system poorly, the Chicago Tribune reported.

Tsatsoulis, an advocate to cap property tax rates, is urging voters to “make this election a referendum for the Illinois legislature to cap our real estate tax increases at 2% and our tax at 1% of the value of our property,” Tsatsoulis said on his website. He also noted that Kaegi, “selectively undercharges preferred owners.” 

Tsatsoulis is a Hyde Park resident who has lived most of his life in Chicago and suburban Chicago. He received his MBA in finance from the University of Chicago. He studied economics as an undergraduate, according to his campaign website.