Cook County property tax bills to go out next week after months of delays

COOK CO., Ill. - Cook County homeowners will finally receive the second installment of their property tax bills soon, after months of delay due to technology problems.

What we know:

County officials announced that bills for about 1.8 million properties will be mailed to owners on Nov. 14.

The payments are due on Dec. 15.

Cook County officials have blamed a decade-old contract with a Texas-based company called Tyler Technologies for the delay. The county entered into a contract with the company in 2015 in hopes of modernizing the property tax billing system within three to five years.

But it hasn’t gone according to plan.

Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas said the company had made so many errors that if bills had gone out earlier this year, some taxpayers would have received incorrect bills.

Originally, the second installment of 2024 property tax bills was due by Aug. 1 of this year.

Why you should care:

While the county collects the tax money, the funds are for multiple other bodies of local government, including cities, villages, school districts, park districts, townships, and library districts, among others. 

Property taxes are a significant source of revenue for local governments and schools.

In Illinois, about 40% of all local government revenue comes from property taxes, according to the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy. Historically, more than 60% of public school funding comes from property taxes, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle approved hundreds of millions of dollars in no-interest loans to local taxing bodies to offset any fiscal challenges that arose during the delay in property tax collections. Nearly 20 local governments received more than $20 million in loans through the program.