By LORRAINE SWANSON
Editor
Standing with her back against the eight previous Cook County assessors, all of whom have been male, Raila wants to become the first woman elected to the Cook County Assessor's seat.
Andrea Raila is mad as hell. After receiving a whopping increase on her condominium in the latest triennial property reassessment, the long-time Edgewater resident and property taxpayers advocate decided to do something about it by running in the upcoming Democractic primary in February.
“I’m just an average citizen,” Raila said. “A lot of people complain about property tax increases, but I’d rather go out and throw my hat in the ring and do something about it.”
A sought after speaker and property management instructor in the city’s Far North lakefront neighborhoods, Raila, 48, spent six years as a case analyst for the Cook County Board of Review. Currently, she is a taxpayer’s advocate for the U.S. Department of Revneue, educating homeowners and small businesses in appealing their property taxes.
The mother of three children, Christopher, 13, Reah, 10, and Rianna, 7, Raila heads her own property tax appeals and public consultancy firm, Andrea Raila and Associates. Her husband, Michael Rohrbeck, a fellow at Loyola University’s Center for Urban Learning and Research, is the firm’s administrative manager. Both have lived in Edgewater for 35 years.
Clients, neighbors and local business people encouraged Raila to make a run for county assessor. She says she has the backing of some local elected officials, though they have yet to come out and publicly endorse her candidacy in the upcoming primary. Raila faces a tough challenge going up against three better known candidates, including the slated Democratic candidate, Joseph Berrios.
“I was once an insider, but now I’m an outsider. I worked inside government reducing people’s property taxes,” Raila said. “I’m a democrat, but frankly, I thought the party could have done a better job slating candidates. I’m different because I have a long history of fighting for reform. [Berrios] has had his problems running the Board of Review, which is currently under investigation. Taxpayers deserve someone who is a professional and an expert in this field.”
The first thing Raila wants to do is to remove the political pressures intrinsic to an elected assessor, by advocating for state legislation that appoints a Cook County Assessor or a supervisor of assessors in counties with populations of one million or more.
While the Cook County Assessor’s office employs many qualified people, it lacks the leadership that a professional assessment adminstrator following best industry practices can provide. She wants to limit campaign contributions for elected country assessors and assessment appeals officials.
“The assessor’s office is filled with qualified people but you need a leader in there who is a professional assessment administrator,” Raila said. “By removing an elected assessor you sit a commissioned one that puts a stranglehold on campaign contributions and eliminates conflicts of interest.”
Many other counties across the country, she adds, have appointed assessors.
A registered state lobbyist since 1992, Ralia was a key contributor to the Illinois State Federation’ study, Taxation Without Representation–The Illinois Property Tax System. She says her established working relationships with state lawmakers give her an inside track for advocating for equal treatment for all Cook County property taxpayers.
Currently, Cook County taxpayers are stripped of their rights to challenge the state tax multiplier on property tax appeals. She wants to implement the same assessments levels and practices in Cook County that are used in the other 101 counties in the state.
Cook is the only county in the state that gets an almost 2.9786 state multiplier, which triples initial assessments. Such changes to Cook County’s “home rule,” that allows the state to set an arbitrary multiplier that artificially inflates market values and initial assessments by almost 200 percent.
She wants to return equalization powers to the Cook County Board of Review, something that the county’s 38 township assessors have been advocating for years. Such changes, Raila said, can only be brought about by state lawmakers.
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“We would allow taxpayers within Cook County to challenge any multiplier that is placed on the county assessor’s initial assessment,” Raila said. “Township assessors can determine if properties are being assessed correctly by looking at sales ratios and assign more accurate township multipliers by taking away that authority from the state.”
With the state’s 7-percent cap on reassessments increases set to expire this year, Raila wants to go one step further by capping triennial reassessment increases for all residential and commercial properties to no more than five percent, with the exception of new property sales and construction.
The county has shifted the property tax burden from single family homes to commercial and residential multi-unit buildings during the most recent triennial reassessment.
“Even if I’m not elected, I will advocate capping triennial reassessments at five percent for all property types,” Raila said. “Apartment and commercial building owners have experienced increases in the most recent reassessment that are between 30 and 40 percent. That’s just wrong.”
Raila also supports addressing Cook County tax inequities and over reliance on property taxes, by using the state income tax for at least 51 percent of educational costs.
In addition to Berrios, other potential candidates include South Side politician Robert Shaw, a Cook County Democratic chairman and a Board of Review commissioner, and former River Forest police officer and real estate broker Eugene Staples.
Provided she is able to double the required 8,100 signatures needed to put her name on Democratic ballot in February, Raila could be poised to become the first woman to be elected as Cook County Assessor.
“I was at the Bears game this weekend gathering signatures,” Raila said. “People kept asking me why I was running. When I told them that my condominium received a 37-percent increase on this year’s reassessment, they said, ‘hand it over, I’ll sign it twice.’ No one should have received that kind of increase in this economy.”
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Great story! brave gal running for Cook County Assessor. We’ll watch for Andrea Raila’s name on the ballot and sign her petition. We mad as hell too about high property taxes.
Bravo to Andrea’s race for Tax Assessor! Right now the tax appeal process is a full employment act for tax lawyers. Maybe we will have sanity brought back to the property tax process after all!
We know Andrea Raila as an honest hardworking property tax consultant for years. Many tax lawyers have worked harder to change state statutes and county rules to customize tax appeal agencies into their sole domaine.
Appeals and assessments should not be shrouded in legalistic jargon or coveted by politics.
We know Andrea Raila, as the first woman Cook County Assessor, will set property tax apepal rules and assessments by the highest of standards. And she would make the system less complex so taxpayers could have a fair chance to challenge increases!
This is a wonderful chance to get a tax smart and tax conservative woman into an important local office! Go Andrea Raila!
She is honest, hardworking, defends the common man/women, believes in equality, a great mom, an excellent tax consultant, experienced as the first female Cook County Assessor, clarifies legalistic jargon and gobbledigook into understandable terms for everone. Has given free lectures for years to the general public on how to present their case for a tax challenge, runs her own tax business, and believes every citizen is important enough to be listened to. She is intelligent and has empathy to right a wrong, she can think out of the box, she will do the citizens proud for electing her. Chicago will get more pride when she works for the citizens of this great city. She is a kind person, who has worked her way up the ladder to obtain her education and present position. She knows what it is to work hard at ones’ life. She has been philanthropic for many causes, she was involved in developing a school within her neighborhod. She has a philosophy that all people and religions are inherently good. She is an artist in painting, and sculpture and photography, she will be more than a breath of fresh air for the city, she is a renaissance women who believes in hope and yes we can.
Andrea Raila is THE expert in reform of the Cook County Property tax system. As a commercial property owner in Lakeview – I trust her expertise in the field. Her tax seminars can help you understand your assessment and to see that changes are needed to make the system more fair and equitable to everyone!
I support Andrea Raila for Cook County Assessor.
Glad to see Andrea Raila is running for Cook County assessor. I wish her all the best and look forward to voting for her. Cook County needs people like her!
Unfortunately, this story doesn’t report the contradidtions in the campaign positions.The county multiplier is a measure of how far off the total property assessments are from 33% of the total FMV of those same properties; i.e.-total Cook County assessents should equal the total FMV of all properties, times 33%. The multipier measures that current assesments are too low by 2.9786 times. Andrea wants to add a 5% cap to assessment increases, no matter what the property’s actual value??? It is no wonder she proposes challenges to the multiplier…under a Ralia administation, the multiplier should become as much as 5 or more within 2 reassessment cycles.
Hi George Capping triennial reassessments –except for sales and new construction–would not cause the state imposed multiplier to increase 70% over next 6 years (from 2.9 to 5).
Here’s a 488 worded clarification of a very complex issue. Hope it helps.
In 1998 Cook County Assessor James Houlihan assembled a Tax Policy Forum for conducting a public examination of the Cook County property tax system.
Recognized experts from various property tax industries including organizations like the Civic Federation, Metropolitan Planning Council, Suburban Mayors Action Coalition of Cook County, and Taxpayers’ Federation of Illinois were chosen because of their long-standing dedication to property tax reform. More than 285 people participated in this endeavor including Andrea Raila. Over a six-month period 21 public meetings examined the overall tax mix and tax burdens of various property classes.
One of the primary areas of weakness in the Cook County property tax system was the classification system cited to have a very adverse impact on the County’s competitive position. Because commercial and industrial properties are assessed at higher levels than residential properties (and at higher levels than in neighboring counties), their property taxes are higher than those in the collar counties.
Since then, the Cook County classification system spread from 16% to as high as 38% is even a wider spread today between homes and businesses from 10% to 25%. It is this excessive 2.5% spread that allows the State Department of Revenue to impose today’s 2.9786 state multiplier up more than 60% over the last 25 years when in 1984 when it was 1.8445.
Interesting to note that even with the accelerated growth of market values and assessed valuations peaking in 2006, the state imposed multiple continued to increase throughout the real estate “boom” years.
But over the last 25 years with the growth of the state multiplier exceeding 60% —the city of Chicago’s aggregate tax rate has dropped 110% from .1016 to .04816 yet taxpayers pay more today in property taxes than they did 25 years ago.
It’s a shell gain.
The only way to control ever escalating property taxes is to place growth caps on all property tax triennial reassessments and rid Cook County of its classification system so that assessments are at the same level with all the other 101 Illinois counties. Just implementing statewide uniform assessment level practices would remove the state imposed multiplier on all Cook County tax bills which raises everyone’s initial assessment set by the assessor by 190%.
A resourceful book, Andrea Raila, co-drafted is entitled The Illinois Property Tax System: Taxation Without Explanation. Commissioned by the Illinois Taxpayer Federation, several of the reform issues urged within this expansive property tax study have actual been implemented, but more systemic issues like the classification system, have not been addressed.
An overview of Tax Policy Forum work can be seen at http://www.Metroplanning.org
Hope that clears things up George. Andrea
PS: Also no small wonder that the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce also supports a uniform classification system. Andrea