Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi faces strong challenge from suburban assessor Pat Hynes in bid for 3rd term

Vying for his third term in the office, Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi faces a challenge in the March 17 Democratic primary from one of his own — first-term Lyons Township Assessor Patrick Hynes, who spent 23 years working in the assessor’s office as a residential field inspector, including three under Kaegi.

It comes at a tumultuous time for many Cook County property taxpayers — residential property tax bills are rising fastest in predominantly Black neighborhoods on the South and West sides.

During the pandemic, Kaegi modified assessments for all homeowners, based on expected unemployment and predicting market values would go down, when they instead went up.

At the same time, county’s tax burden shifted away from the city’s economic center. Commercial value has been dropping as large businesses and wealthy land owners appeal assessments at higher rates — and more successfully — shifting more of the burden onto low income home owners, according to a November Cook County treasurer’s office report and a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of five years of tax bills.

The combination helped lead to the whiplash affecting homeowners now.

Kaegi, who has been in office since 2018, said he still stands by his move, and continues to push for circuit breaker legislation as a solution, which would cap individual tax bill increases and create a relief system for low income homeowners, though iterations of the policy have stalled in Springfield.

“We need to have a property tax relief system,” Kaegi said.

Hynes called it an “unforced error,” blaming many of the office’s woes on Kaegi's COVID-19 adjustment. He said circuit breaker laws would be costly and could be avoided had the assessment stayed on track with market value.

He admits there are “no magic beans,” but said the office has an "embarrassment of riches” when it comes to tools at its disposal to improve the system.

“We are causing real harm to people at times when we get it wrong,” Hynes said. “Even in a hot market, we don’t have that kind of wild adjustment in value.”

Kaegi’s early tenure saw some positive change. Christopher Berry, a professor of public policy at University of Chicago and director of the school’s Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, said Kaegi has reduced overassessments for lower value homes and underassessments on higher value homes.

It was a break from former assessor Joe Berrios, whose assessment methods often favored wealthier property owners and allowed them to pay less in property taxes than those in low-income and minority communities. One of Kaegi’s first moves was adopting a new code of ethics for the office.

But with the whiplash of the COVID-19 adjustments and a county with a greater demand for tax money every year, taxes have continued to rise.

“The most notable change [under Kaegi] has been more fair taxes,” Berry said. “The decline in downtown office values in particular shifts the tax burden to residential... People are seeing their taxes go up regardless of the fact that the assessments are more fair.”

Hynes has touted cracking down on properties that have undergone construction that he says the assessor’s office has missed, including properties in his own jurisdiction. He wants to expand field inspector teams and use AI tools on satellite imagery to better identify new construction.

“You assess according to the law and the market, it should move at a slow, predictable pace,” Hynes said. “Think of the buildings that weren’t built because they were chased away by an erratic property tax system... If they don’t build it, we can’t tax it, and then we can’t spread that burden around to provide relief for taxpayers.”

Kaegi has shot back about Hynes taking contributions from property tax lawyers. Campaign finance records show Hynes has taken nearly $70,000 from at least 43 different lawyers employed by firms providing property tax services, or the firms themselves, since Sept. 30.

That includes nearly $10,000 from lawyers at Worsek and Vihon, a property tax law firm that boasts it led to recent reductions of more than $3 million for several Cook County properties, according to campaign contribution data.

Kaegi took a $1,032 donation from a lawyer at Kirkland & Ellis, which provides tax dispute services for clients. Lawyers at the firm also donated $7,500 to Hynes.

Hynes has pointed to the tens of thousands of dollars Kaegi has taken from developers, construction companies and others in the real estate field — including $25,000 from investor Stephen Schuler at Wicklow Capital and $5,000 from K&J Builders.

But the challenger has also taken nearly $60,000 alone from those involved with 150 N. Riverside, a property along the riverfront which saw its last appeal to the assessor’s office shut down in 2018 — the year Kaegi took office. David Carlins, CEO of Magellan Development, a luxury rental and condo developer who has worked on projects such as the St. Regis skyscraper, also dropped $40,000 on Hynes’ campaign.

“We have a very wide swath of support for the campaign, including those active in the real estate market,” Hynes said.