By A.D. Quig | Chicago Tribune
It’s still unclear when Cook County homeowners and other property owners will receive their property tax bills, top officials told commissioners this week, thanks to lingering defects in a tech upgrade already delayed by several years.
Now the county has launched a $300 million loan fund to help cities, towns and other taxing bodies that will struggle to make ends meet without those property tax revenues in hand.
The new system was supposed to be ready in April. County leaders committed to officially make the switch off their legacy system — housed on decades-old mainframe computers — to fully adopt Tyler Technology’s system in May in time for the normal bill schedule, with bills due by Aug. 1.
“I want to be transparent with this board,” Chief Technology Officer Tom Lynch told commissioners on the Cook County Board’s Technology Committee on Wednesday. “We have made a lot of progress, but we’re not done either.”
Property tax offices cannot generate accurate bills yet, nor could they distribute the money back to taxing bodies after bills are paid, Lynch told commissioners.
In response, the County Board on Thursday directly authorized borrowing $300 million to fund a local taxing district loan program. The county created a similar fund in 2022 — the last time bills were late — to aid suburban taxing jurisdictions that had a cash crunch and high borrowing costs. The county will be automatically paid back when those property tax revenues do come in.
The need might be higher this time, county Chief Financial Officer Tanya Anthony said, because local jurisdictions have fewer federal pandemic dollars propping up their budgets. Taxing bodies with less than 120 days cash on hand and a bond rating lower than the county’s can apply now through Oct. 3. The city of Chicago and Chicago Public Schools are ineligible.
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