Cook County residents have long sensed that their property tax bills were rising faster than anything else in their financial lives. On Monday, March 30, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas released a 30-year study that confirms it — and puts numbers to the scale of a crisis that has been building for three decades, reshaping neighborhoods, driving out residents, and straining the finances of homeowners from Pilsen to the south suburbs.

Property taxes levied across Cook County climbed to $19.2 billion in 2024, a roughly 182% increase from $6.8 billion in 1995. Over the same period, inflation rose 91% and wages grew 161%, meaning tax bills have steadily eaten up a larger share of household income. If the levy had grown only at the rate of inflation, it would be closer to $10.1 billion today — roughly $9 billion less than what residents and businesses are actually paying.

The report, titled How State Laws Failed to Stop Decades of Skyrocketing Property Taxes: A Case for Reform, is a direct call to action aimed at Gov. JB Pritzker and the General Assembly. Pappas, who has served as treasurer since 1998 and is widely expected to run for Chicago mayor in 2027, did not soften the indictment. “Illinois in 2025 had the dubious distinction of having the highest residential property tax rate in the nation. Chicago has the highest commercial rate in the U.S.,” Pappas said.

The Law That Was Supposed to Stop This — And Didn’t

Illinois lawmakers created the Property Tax Extension Limitation Law, known as PTELL, in the early 1990s specifically to prevent property taxes from spiraling beyond what residents could bear. The law caps annual increases to 5% or the rate of inflation, whichever is less. On paper, it should have kept Cook County’s levy relatively stable over three decades.

In practice, local officials took advantage of PTELL’s loopholes to enact tax increases that substantially exceeded that limit, and 94 of the county’s 135 municipalities are not even bound by the law.

Pappas identified six specific mechanisms officials use to circumvent PTELL. Home rule municipalities — generally larger cities and villages — are granted more leeway by the state and are not bound by the cap at all. Local governments can push tax increases beyond the legal limit through referendums, which agencies typically target to low-turnout elections. Tax increment financing districts are entirely exempt from PTELL caps. And specific dedicated funds, like the one that allowed Chicago Public Schools to reinstate a pension property tax levy, are not bound by PTELL in their first year.

Pappas described the structure plainly: “Every year, all 562 governments come into Cook County, and they say: ‘This is how much money I want.’ So what’s happened is that amount of money went from $12 billion to $19 billion.”

Schools Are the Single Largest Driver

Illinois provides just 24% of all K-12 public education costs — the lowest percentage of any state. Less funding from the state forces local school districts to rely far more heavily on property taxes to operate.

The report found 153 school districts accounted for nearly 55% of all property taxes in 2024, with levies up 189% over 30 years. Continued underfunding from the state has forced districts to lean heavily on local property taxes even as pension obligations and operating costs climb.

In 2017, state lawmakers set a 2027 goal to fund at least 90% of each school’s state funding needs, but the state is $5 billion short with just a year to go. At the current rate, it will take until at least 2037 to reach the level mandated by the original bill, closing a $3.3 billion gap, according to the Center on Tax and Budget Accountability.

For CPS specifically, the issue is compounded because the district pays for its own pension costs — unlike every other school district in the state. “The schools have to make it up with property taxes,” said Hal Dardick, director of research for the treasurer’s office. “It may require some sort of alternate method by the state of funding schools.”

The TIF Problem: A 1,000% Surge in 30 Years

Tax Increment Financing districts — originally designed to channel property tax revenue toward revitalizing struggling neighborhoods — have evolved into one of the county’s most significant pressure points.

In the past 30 years, TIF district taxes in Chicago and the suburbs swelled from $160 million to more than $1.8 billion, an increase of 1,034%. The number of TIF districts rose from 154 to 418, while the number of properties in those districts grew from 18,314 to 281,880.

TIF increases now account for about 10% of the county’s total property tax burden, up from 2.5% in 1995. In the city alone, TIF taxes demanded $1.3 billion more than in 1995 — an eleven-times increase — while suburban TIF taxes added $372 million more.

In a TIF district, property tax dollars for schools, parks, and other taxing districts are frozen for at least 23 years, so that all increases go into a development fund rather than to those services. Critics have long argued the program has been used less as a targeted revitalization tool and more as a revenue mechanism that effectively hides tax dollars from public scrutiny.

Hardest Hit: Chicago’s South and West Side Neighborhoods

The report’s neighborhood-by-neighborhood data is where the 30-year trend becomes most consequential. The increases are not distributed evenly — and the communities absorbing the sharpest spikes are disproportionately Black and Brown.

The Oakland neighborhood, just north of Kenwood, saw a 636.22% increase in property tax bills between 1995 and 2024. East Garfield Park saw a 447.22% increase. The Lower West Side, West Garfield Park, and North Lawndale all saw increases over 200%.

Property taxes imposed by the city, Chicago Public Schools, and all other local taxing bodies within Chicago’s boundaries rose to nearly $8.9 billion in 2024 from about $2.9 billion in 1995 — a 211% jump. The report cited “a particularly steep jump” in Chicago taxes over the last 10 years specifically, driven by rising state-mandated pension payments for both the city and CPS.

In communities where property values have recovered from decades of disinvestment, rising assessments combined with higher levies have produced tax bills that residents with modest, fixed, or only modestly growing incomes cannot absorb without making painful trade-offs. “The annual increases in taxes are relentless, taking more and more money out of people’s pockets,” Pappas said. “I see it every day in my office, with people wondering how they are going to pay their tax bills or even whether they can stay in their homes.”

The Political Moment — and What Comes Next

The study lands in a charged political environment. Outrage about rising property taxes, especially on Chicago’s West and South Sides, was widely cited as a driving factor in Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s loss to challenger Patrick Hynes in the March 17 Democratic primary.

Pappas is calling on state and local leaders to act, and she has put the ask directly on record. She called on state lawmakers to “pass significant tax reform and find ways for local taxing agencies to cut spending,” adding: “The annual increases in taxes are relentless, taking more and more money out of people’s pockets.”

The report offers a menu of proposed reforms — closing PTELL loopholes, consolidating local governments, expanding the sales tax base, and revisiting a graduated income tax — but acknowledges the political lift required.

A state-level property tax study from the Illinois Department of Revenue is expected by the end of July, which Pappas and reform advocates hope will create an opening for legislative action. Whether Springfield moves — given years of similar studies gathering dust on shelves — remains an open question.

Pappas left no ambiguity about the urgency: “We’re past finger-pointing because the trucks are movin’ people out of here.”