As of mid-September our assessments were submitted to the county for 2011.  Remember, the assessment reflects the legal valuation date of January 1, 2011 – not mid or late 2011.  Information on values that occurred late in 2011 will be more applicable for the legal valuation date of January 1, 2012.  Some people also don’t understand that the Department of Revenue determines equalization factors based on the three-year assessment cycle (2008 through 2010) for 2011 – not just last month’s activity.

McHenry County Assessment Office processes the changes and arranges for a publication date and the mailing of assessment notices.  It’s a busy time for them since 2011 is a quadrennial year; that is, all assessments are published once every four years on the quadrennial.

For the third year in a row most property owners in McHenry Township will see a decreased assessment.  My staff and I worked on many areas for revaluation as well as the negative equalization factor, reducing assessments township-wide.  (How many owners remember the many years of equalizers that increased assessments?  At least that part of the system is working in favor of the property owners now.)

The assessment notice clearly states the 2011 values and the full market value of the property as of the legal valuation date (January 1, 2011 – I can’t stress this fact enough).  The assessment notice also provides steps if you decide to appeal the assessment.  Please remember that you are appealing your assessment – not the amount of the tax bill.  Hopefully the notes below will help you understand how the assessment fits into the tax bill cycle.

The state equalization factor imposed for 2010 does not carry forward to 2011.  The budget amounts of the local governments (the pie) are simply allocated within the equalized assessed value to determine the tax rate.  Tax rates increased between 2009 and 2010, because of decreased assessments, increased owner exemptions and various levy amounts.  Many people feel that the 2010 state equalization factor increased their tax bills; not true.  The budget dollars did not change because of the state factor.  The state equalization factor only increased assessments which caused the tax rates to not increase as much as they would have without the state factor.  If a government is legally allowed to collect $1,000 or $1,000,000 they will still collect the legal amount regardless of the assessment.

The assessment notice places heavy emphasis on reviewing the assessment and contacting my office before filing an official assessment appeal.  That is a great way to informally discuss the assessment but based on the 2010 assessment appeal period we were very busy office.  Sometimes you can’t give an owner an immediate answer but will have to get back to them after researching their data.

Our office is a small one.  There’s only four full-time employees and me.  We can only do so much in that limited time.  Last year, about the 4^th week of the appeal period we were no longer able to help the owners just contacting us.  In order to preserve their right to an assessment review, we advised those individuals to file the formal appeal because answers were still owed to owners who came in earlier.  Those people were frustrated because they followed directions on the assessment notice.

I believe 2011 will also be busy this year.  Therefore my message is that, if after you see the assessment reductions implemented for 2011 and if you still wish to have your assessment reviewed, don’t wait until the last minute to contact our office.

SENIOR ASSESSMENT FREEZE – 2011