Kane assessments supervisor urges cutting notices to public

As Kane County officials seek to close a $5.6 million projected budget gap for 2018, Kane County Supervisor of Assessments Mark Armstrong on Thursday suggested halting spending tax dollars in local newspapers.

The $1.26 million budget for Armstrong's office is about 2 percent of the county's $60 million general fund budget. Armstrong earmarks about 8 percent of his expenses or $106,000 this year to publish changes in property assessments in local newspapers, including the Daily Herald.

State law requires those notices.

Josh Sharp, vice president of government for the Illinois Press Association, took strong exception to the assessment supervisor's complaint.

"Armstrong believes less transparency is the answer," Sharp said. "The Illinois Press Association respectfully disagrees. The point of printing public notices in the newspaper is to give notice to the public -- to make sure that notices about important matters like property tax collection are actually seen by taxpayers, not just to make sure the information is simply located somewhere on a government website. Publishing property tax related information is slated to cost Kane County approximately .00036% of its more than $272,000,000 adopted budget in 2018."

The notices published by Armstrong's office include the name of the person who owns the property, the parcel number and the amount of the assessment. Township assessors decide which properties receive assessment changes. The county foots the bill to publish the notice of those changes. Armstrong said that's not fair.

"We have zero control over how many parcels get changed," Armstrong said. "We have four new township assessors in Kane County. Some ran on a platform of revising all the assessments. That means we're going to pay more."

Armstrong said it is all wasted taxpayer money. He said the county mails letters to each person with an assessment change. It also publishes the full list of changes on the supervisor's website.

Armstrong is a vocal member of the County Assessment Officers Association of Illinois. The group tried eliminating the state law requiring newspaper publication of assessment changes in 2011. The effort failed, but Armstrong said his group plans to try again in hopes of avoiding the larger printing bill coming in 2019.