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BYLINE: Mark Brown, Chicago Sun-Times November 6, 2001 Maybe you read my column last week recommending that you appeal your Cook County property tax assessment this year because county officials had made it easier than ever by promising tod the hard part for you. Maybe you picked up on the sarcastic tone of that column, and maybe you didn't. That's the problem with using sarcasm in print. Sometimes it comes across, and sometimes it doesn't. Either way, however, some of you took my advice and called the Cook County Board of Review (formerly known as the Board of Appeals) and asked for the same well-do-work-for-you treatment accorded some local politicians who appealed their assessments and got a nice tax cut. And some of you then contacted me to let me know that the Board of Review employees were treating you like you were nuts. Contrary to their bosses' pronouncements, staffers made it clear they had no intention of doing your homework for you in preparing a tax appeal. They said they were unaware of any change in the board's policies and procedures requiring taxpayers to submit their own evidence of why they deserve an assessment reduction. I didn't have any trouble believing those who called to report this. I suspected from the start that it helped to know the secret password to get the level of service received by the politicians as well as by other taxpayers who showed up at community meetings arranged by those politicians. In those cases, the board had taken it upon itself to find the addresses of comparable properties, or "comps," that had received a lower assessment ? enabling the board to justify a reduction. But I thought I should throw in a call myself Monday to be sure that callers hadn't just encountered some glitch. The lady who answered the phone for the Board of Review was polite. She told me I could stop by the board's offices at 118 N. Lasalle to fill out a complaint form, or they could send it to me through the mail. She said the board would inform me later of the hearing that would be scheduled to consider my complaint. At that time, I would be allowed to submit any documentation to support my case, she said. I told her that I'd read in the Sun-Times that the board would search the documentation for me. She said she didn't know anything about that. "I'm not familiar with that article in the paper," she said. "Please bring it in with you because I need to see it." I asked if I was supposed to bring pictures of my house and comparable properties as part of my evidence. "You do need a picture at the time of the hearing," she said. (You may recall that the Sun-Times reported last week that Ald. John Pope (10th) and Cook County Commissioner Roberto Maldonado each received double-digit percentage reductions in their assessments from the Board of Review without submitting any written documentation ? and certainly not pictures.) So what would happen if I didn't submit any documentation, I asked. "Then you don't have a case," she said. "How do we know? I don't think that article said we'd do all the legwork for you." Actually, it did, quoting Board of Review Commissioner Robert Shaw who said, "Anyone can file a complaint, and we will have our staff look for the comparables." So I double-checked Monday with another board commissioner, Joseph Berrios, to ask him if it was indeed the policy to search for taxpayers. "Absolutely," he said. When I told him about the contrary statements made to me and other would-be complainants, Berrios said he would immediately have a meeting with the board's receptionists to clarify the policy. He said he already met last week with employees who work behind the counter at the board's County Building office after some taxpayers arrived carrying copies of my column. According to Berrios, anyone who asks is entitled to the same treatment. You can make the request in person when you submit your complaint form or just write it on a note if you file by mail, he said. "If you ask us to look up you comps, you're done," he promised. You don't even have to attend the hearing, he said. Curiously, there is no mention of this option on the board's appeal form, and until recently, the board still used a stamp on some rejected appeals that says: "NO DOCS NO CHANE." Even if you file, there is no guarantee that you'll get you assessment reduced. But the board likes to point out that more than 60 percent of those who appeal have been successful. "Not everyone is going to get a cut, although I'd like to get everyone a cut for political reasons," Berrios said. Politics isn't supposed to have anything to do with it, of course, and there is a concern that the Board of Review commissioners have been especially generous in granting cuts to taxpayers (potential voters) who attend their outreach meetings. I don't know that it's very good public policy for the agency charged with making sure the assessments are fair to be in the position of hunting for ways to give you a tax break. The Board or Review is a quasi-judicial agency. It's supposed to function as an impartial judge, not a taxpayers' advocate. It has a duty to all the rest of the taxpayers, too, because when somebody gets their assessment cut, everybody else has to make up the slack. But I figure that if the insiders have figured out that this is how to work the system, then the rest of you ought to get a shot too. While Berrios is clarifying the policy on taxpayers submitting their own documentation, he might want to have a talk with the board employees who staff the five suburban branch offices. I had an interesting chat Monday with a fellow at the Skokie office, again inquiring about how to file an appeal and invoking what I'd read in the paper last week. He assured me the article was completely wrong. "It doesn't make sense," the gentleman said. "If something goes wrong, the customer blames us." "What you read was somebody writing something that didn't know what he was talking about," he said. "That Mr. Brown, he has a habit of not knowing what he's writing about." Yeah, but even a broken clock is right twice a day. CFAT News Source news@fairtaxes.net Tax Board Offers Services with a Furrowed Brow |
