”We`re trying to be very careful this time,” Michael V. Deane, Du Page County supervisor of assessments, said Thursday when he announced that the assessed valuation of Downers Grove Township will increase 8 to 10 percent as a result of last year`s quadrennial reassessment.
That`s quite a bit less than the 42 percent increase reported last week after a Westmont house erroneously was assessed at $396 million.
”We can`t afford to have another little mistake,” Deane said. ”One of those in a lifetime is plenty.”
Because of the bookkeeping blunder, coupled with a complicated state formula designed to keep revenues stable, about 50,000 property owners in Downers Grove Township, Du Page`s most populous, had received notices that their assessments were going to drop an astounding 25 percent.
The new figures, Deane, said, show that the assessments will be fairly close to what property owners had expected.
Deane said his office next week will begin mailing new notices, restoring the 25 percent cut from the original 1987 assessments.
The Westmont house assessed at $396 million is owned by David Cohn, a 52- year-old electrician. The correct assessment on the house, which Cohn bought two years ago for $118,000, is $39,000, said Theresa A. Cockrell, the Downers Grove Township assessor.
County officials haven`t finished totaling the overall assessment for the township, but Deane said it probably would rise 8 to 10 percent over last year`s $1.3 billion. A quadrennial reassessment and growth in the area fueled the increase, he said.
