Barrington tax bill leaps; Prospect Heights declines

Hold on to your hats, Barrington. You're about to get socked.

But chill out, Prospect Heights. You've got it made in the shade.

And to property taxpayers in northern Cook County in general, you're going to see a median increase of 2.8 percent when residential tax bills start going out Oct. 1, county officials said Thursday.

That roughly 3 percent median hike in tax bills will be the envy of Barrington residents, whose median tax bill increase will be 14.9 percent. The median 2007 tax bill will be $6,072, up from $5,285 in 2006.

But over in Prospect Heights, they'll see a median decrease of 9.5 percent, down from a median bill of $4,262 for 2006 taxes to $3,859 in 2007. (And yes, 2007 is not a misprint; tax bills run a year behind the calendar year.)

But it's important to remember those numbers come with a lot of caveats.

First, the numbers are preliminary estimates provided by the assessor's office. Second, because the figures represent the median tax bill, very few residents will see bills similar to the numbers listed. Median is not an average, but means that half of taxpayers will see percentage changes greater than the median, and half will see a change smaller.

"It's very hard to have a typical taxpayer any more because of the complexity of all the exemptions," said Eric Herman, a spokesman for Cook County Assessor Jim Houlihan.

Houlihan, who is often the misdirected target of taxpayers' ire, does not set the levies that determine how much comes out of your pocket. The individual governments - villages, library districts, school districts, and Cook County - play the largest role when they set their levy, or amount they request to operate.

Houlihan does play a role in the formula, by assessing the value of your home as a function of market rates. The state also plays a role by determining the equalizer, a number that tries to even out the tax burden throughout the state.

This year, the median tax bill in northern Cook County saw a modest jump. But that could increase next year, said Herman, as Houlihan's 7 percent expanded homeowner's exemption is phased out by the Illinois legislature.

Houlihan's 7 percent legislation limited assessment increases, for taxing purposes, to 7 percent a year by adjusting the homeowner's exemption. The idea was to moderate huge tax bill increases in hot real estate markets by spreading out the increases over three years instead of one. Houlihan wanted to make the law permanent.

But the legislature, arguing that a slowing real estate market made the law unnecessary, voted to phase it out, setting individual homeowners' exemptions at $33,000 for 2007 bills, $26,000 for 2008 bills, $20,000 for 2009 bills, and $6,000 for 2010 bills. The declining exemption amounts may have the effect of increasing residents' tax bills, Herman said.

Thursday's data from the assessor's office was not a comprehensive release of every town in Cook County, but a sampling of some towns.

Tax bills will begin going out in the mail Oct. 1 and will be due Nov. 3, said Maria Pappas, Cook County treasurer.