How would you feel if the Cook County state’s attorney candidate took a political donation from a lawyer and then handed the lawyer’s client a big chunk of your money?
We’re guessing you wouldn’t much care for that.
EDITORIAL
For exactly that reason — because we’re talking about your money — the state’s attorney should never accept political donations from high-powered property tax lawyers. The state’s attorney faces off in court against these very same lawyers, who are looking for tax breaks for clients. When they get the tax breaks, everybody else’s property taxes, including yours, often are increased to make up the difference.
In Sunday’s Sun-Times, Tim Novak reported State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, then a candidate, accepted a $10,000 campaign donation from Ald. Edward Burke (14th), even though Burke’s client was battling the state’s attorney’s office in court, seeking millions of dollars in property tax refunds for his clients. Burke also hosted a fund-raiser for Foxx in his Southwest Side home.
When Foxx’s office settled three cases with one of Burke’s clients — AT&T, which owns a 105-acre campus in Hoffman Estates — Barrington High School District 220 suddenly was docked $1.1 million.
Perhaps that was the best deal anyone could have made on behalf of the school district. There is no indication that Foxx’s office went soft. The political donations, though, cloud the issue, especially for the local school officials who have to figure out how to get their budgets back into balance.
Unfortunately, these types of donations are common — and legal. Lawyers often make donations to judges before whom they are likely to appear. Property tax lawyers make donations to the county assessor and members of the Cook County Board of Review. But it’s not a practice that inspires confidence in the property tax system.
To our thinking, the state’s attorney should never accept a donation from any litigant involved in a case that also involves the state’s attorney.
Foxx ran for state’s attorney as a reformer, and she’s shown a willingness to take the office in a better direction. But she compromises her reputation for holding herself to the highest standards of public ethics when she takes money from property tax lawyers who have cases involving the county, including Burke.
Yes, Burke is a fellow elected official and a fellow member of the Democratic Party. He’s also a big-time property tax lawyer whom Foxx should keep at arm’s length.
The arcane laws governing property taxes create what can feel like an endless series of appeals that, for wealthy property owners, can involve skilled property tax lawyers every step of the way. First, the Cook County assessor sets the value for tax purposes on a particular piece of property. That can be appealed. If the property owner doesn’t like the assessor’s decision, the case can be further appealed to the Cook County Board of Review. If that body doesn’t reduce the tax assessment sufficiently, the property owner can go to court. At that point, the state’s attorney steps in to defend the assessments on behalf of local taxing bodies.
In the Barrington school district case, AT&T wanted a $16 million reduction, but settled for a cut of nearly $2 million. Looked at one way, Foxx’s office protected local taxing bodies from taking a hit of an additional $14 million. But the process is far from transparent, and local officials didn’t even know about it until after the deal was cut.
When the state’s attorney’s office agrees to a property tax reduction, big or small, it should be required by law to explain the math and logic behind that agreed-upon tax break. Put it on paper, if only briefly, for any citizen to look up and read.
The intertwining of property taxes and politics has a checkered history in Cook County. Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios runs the Cook County Democratic Party, while Illinois House Speaker and Chicago Democrat Michael J. Madigan leads the state Democratic Party. At the same time, Madigan runs a law firm that brings tax appeal cases to Berrios’ office, even as Berrios has gone to Springfield as a paid lobbyist looking for help for clients.
Think they’re looking out for you?
Foxx had no direct role about the settlements her office made, a spokesman said, and we have no reason to doubt that statement. But the optics, at minimum, are terrible.
More broadly, any elected official in a position to influence the size of a property tax bill should not be allowed, by state law, to accept campaign contributions from property tax lawyers.
Not that the Illinois Legislature, run by Madigan and another property tax lawyer — Senate President John Cullerton — will ever allow a vote on that one.
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