Cook County officials seeking property tax relief for low-income seniors scraped by in the Illinois General Assembly, winning passage of a bill that expands eligibility for senior property tax breaks over objections from south suburban county leaders.
Despite doubts that any such legislation would pass by the time the legislature adjourned on Friday morning, several other property tax changes — including moving the due date for spring bills one month later — also crawled over the legislative finish line.
It’s a key victory for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Assessor Fritz Kaegi, coming a few weeks before property tax bills are set to land and as campaign season heats up. Both Preckwinkle and Kaegi are facing challengers in the March Democratic primary.
Under the bill that passed in the waning hours of the fall legislative session, lawmakers raised the statewide income threshold for people over age 65 to qualify for the “senior freeze” tax break. The current limit for Cook County homeowners is $65,000, a figure that hasn’t changed since 2018 even though inflation has ticked up consistently. For the rest of the state, the income limit has been $55,000. Pending the governor’s signature, the thresholds statewide will jump to $75,000, but will apply only to property tax bills owed in 2027.
“This legislation ensures that thousands of vulnerable seniors in Cook County won’t be in danger of losing their homes because of unmanageable property tax increases,” Kaegi said in a release, crediting Preckwinkle’s team and advocacy groups for helping get the bill passed. Kaegi’s effort to have that tax break automatically renewed failed.
The freeze on a home’s taxable value is designed to protect low-income seniors from rising assessments that can trigger higher bills. While others’ valuations might rise with the market, an eligible household’s value stays at that same amount as when they applied, so long as their income stays below the threshold and homeowners reapply annually.
The bill increases the threshold to $75,000 for the 2026 tax year, which is owed the following year. It’ll increase to $77,000 for 2027 and $79,000 for 2028 and beyond.
But a coalition representing south suburban mayors and village managers opposed the plan, arguing that while helping seniors was a worthy goal, it would shift more of the tax burden onto taxpayers already strained by steep increases in recent years.
Any tax break for one group of homeowners means others will have to pay more — but Cook County and the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association disagree on how much more. County officials, citing data from the University of Illinois at Chicago, said any resulting tax rate increase would be minimal and would be spread out over time.
Many south suburban communities already have heavy concentrations of low-income seniors and fewer commercial properties than Chicago or more affluent suburbs. That places a heavier tax burden on other homeowners.
Kristi DeLaurentiis, executive director of the South Suburban Mayors and Managers Association, said many of those communities were hit hard in 2024, when the median residential property tax bill rose 19.9% to $6,117. The spike was even higher in towns such as Dixmoor, Phoenix, Calumet Park, Markham and Hazel Crest.
DeLaurentiis said the county is underestimating the number of homeowners who will apply for the expanded senior freeze.
“We’re not clear of anything yet and we’ve had such significant pain from these higher property tax bills that if we’re now expanding the pool” of eligible senior freeze homes, it will drive up tax rates and, again, “even in small amounts, drive up property tax bills,” she said.
The legislation also hikes income eligibility — matching the senior freeze — for the state-funded “senior deferral” loan program. That offers up to $7,500 per tax year to help low-income seniors pay their bills. It is paid back when the property is sold or the participant dies.
Cook County Clerk Monica Gordon will also, under the legislation, be allowed to create a payment plan for any homeowner working to pay back taxes that are sold at auction. Known as tax “redemption,” those delinquent taxes can accrue heavy interest costs and eventually result in the loss of a home. County officials hope payment plans will allow those in dire financial straits to stay in their homes.
Despite the political wins for Preckwinkle and Kaegi, tax bills this year are months behind schedule and will likely be due by mid- or late December. To give taxpayers more financial wiggle room between due dates of the twice-a-year county property tax bills, the state legislation also successfully moved Cook County’s due date for the spring bills, or “first installment,” one month later to April 1.
In a fiery budget hearing Thursday morning, when the bills’ fate was uncertain, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas threatened to print first installment bills a month later “no matter what anyone tells me.”
Pappas, like Kaegi and Preckwinkle, is up for reelection next year. In her Thursday budget hearing, Pappas again railed against Tyler Technologies, the contractor upgrading the county’s property tax system, for recent errors in tax bill calculations, and criticized other county leaders for various missteps that she said contributed to this year’s tax bill delay. Pappas wrote dozens of letters over the decade-long Tyler upgrade process, at times urging the county to fire the firm.
That earned a rebuke from Preckwinkle, Kaegi and Gordon, who on Friday chastised Pappas in a letter for lobbing unnecessary bombs right before the project had reached the finish line and after improved relations between Tyler and the various county offices in recent weeks.
Only 11,000 properties still had outstanding errors related to bill calculations as of Friday morning, according to the letter. Tyler is on the hook for a separate, straightforward fix to remove tax-exempt parcels from the main bill file. But pending any other problems, the data is slated to be sent to the printer on Tuesday, property tax officials said.
In a letter in response, Pappas said she stood by her comments “and her 30 prior letters about this project going back to 2018.”
Preckwinkle’s challenger, Chicago Ald. Brendan Reilly, and Kaegi’s opponent, Lyons Township Assessor Pat Hynes, have both seized on the property tax bill delay and the cost of the Tyler contract as political weaknesses. In a Friday text message campaign, Hynes’ team shared a Halloween-themed image of Kaegi urging recipients to “hold Tricky Fritz Kaegi accountable” for late bills.
Kaegi’s work with Tyler has largely been complete for years, however. An error transferring data to the state back in May did threaten to compound the delay, but it was fixed about a week later than last year and didn’t ultimately make the delay any worse.
