At the September 1 annual city budget hearing, held at Falconer Elementary on the northwest side, Mayor Daley was doing what he does best: telling people what they want to hear while promising nothing. To the activist who asked for more money to alleviate overcrowding at a local school, Daley said, “You got my ear.” To the woman who complained about a rude city employee, he said, frowning, “Is he in this room?”
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For example, last year on my north-side house I paid $5,761.33, up from $3,456.58 in 2003–an increase of almost 67 percent that’s entirely the result of the rise in my house’s assessed value. Yet in a recent press release heralding this year’s proposed budget, Daley claims, “City property tax increases have been kept below the rate of inflation.”
How can Daley make such a preposterous claim? “It’s easy–the city hides behind the assessment,” says Head. “The rising assessments do the dirty work of increasing taxes. People get upset at the assessor. They’re not looking at the whole picture.”
TRAC’s long-term goal is to persuade the state to adopt an “acquisition-based” assessment. “That would freeze assessments at the level they were when people bought their properties,” says Head. “You wouldn’t be penalized because your neighbor sold his house.” Obviously this would create a huge drop in revenues, so TRAC proposes to base future assessments on property bought before 2000 on the 2000 assessment.
Afterward officials told me privately that Daley wasn’t officially endorsing any of TRAC’s proposals. Instead he was merely offering sympathy to taxpayers and reaffirming his intention to press for more state money.
