Madison County Board of Review to set final assessment on property values

Taxpayers across Madison County will soon be notified of their new assessed property values.

“If you receive a notice that there was an increase in your property’s assessment, it does not automatically mean it will increase your property taxes,” Madison County Board Chairman Chris Slusser said. “A property tax bill is determined by local taxing bodies and how much each unit of local government requests (tax levy) to provide service to its citizens. However, the increase in the multiplier does give taxing districts the opportunity to raise taxes if they choose.”

The Illinois Department of Revenue issued the county’s tentative property assessment equalization factor, or multiplier, of 1.0903. The ‘multiplier,’ is the method used to achieve uniform property assessments among taxpayers.

The Board of Review is set to hold a public hearing at 9:30 a.m. Feb. 28 to determine the multiplier and final property assessment for 2024. There will be around 133,000 postcards mailed on March 4 notifying property owners whose assessment changed.

Slusser said Madison County has been a good steward of taxpayer’s money and kept costs down while continuing to provide services.

“For the past eight years Madison County Government has kept its tax levy flat,” he said. “There are other units of local government that have done the same thing. If every taxing district followed suit, taxpayers would never see an increase in their tax bill regardless of how high their assessment reached.”

Board of Review Chair Phil Taylor said the equalization hearing is the final step in the assessment process.

“The multiplier is the effort of providing a uniform average level of assessments between townships and/or counties.,” Taylor said. “From an equalization standpoint, the value of property in Madison County has to be 33.3% of the sale value.”

Taylor said the equalization factor is determined annually by comparing the price of individual properties sold over the past three years to the assessed value placed on those properties by the county supervisor of assessments/county assessor.

“For the past three years the multiplier has been greater than one across Madison County,” Taylor said.

The tentative multipliers for the county’s 24 townships are:

 

 

Taylor said the factors that could cause the assessed value to go up are due to what is taking place in the market. He said everything is based off of “what would the property sell for?”

“Every time someone buys a property and pays more for it than the property is assessed, it can cause values to increase on all properties,” he said. “There is a Sales Ratio Study done that determines the average level of assessment for each township or multi-township. Our job is to take that amount and add a multiplier to each property (seen in the notice) to equalize all properties.”

The Board of Review only deals with the valuation of the property. Once the value is set it is used to process taxes which are based on the rates in all the districts that a property is located in.

Property owners who disagree with their new assessment will have 30 days, starting March 4, to file an appeal with the Property Tax Appeal Board (PTAB).

Forms to file an appeal can be found at your local township assessor’s office, the Madison County Board of Review, and the Madison County Chief Assessment Office. Forms can also be downloaded from www.ptab.illinois.gov.