University Park, Illinois' property tax bill went up 255% this cycle. The 16th Ward's went up 92%. Chicago's citywide median residential bill rose 16.7% to $4,457 — the largest jump in at least 30 years, the third straight year of 15%-plus increases, adding up to $872 million more paid county-wide.

That's not why Cook County voters fired their assessor. It's why they didn't fire him sooner.

Per WBEZ's reporting on the March 2026 primary, Assessor Fritz Kaegi lost to challenger Pat Hynes by roughly 35,000 votes, with his worst margins in the suburbs where bills spiked hardest. During his tenure, business property tax bills fell about 20% while residential bills rose more than 16% — a shift a University of Chicago study found actually made valuations more equitable, correcting years of over-assessment on lower-value homes. Voters didn't punish inaccuracy. They punished the bill.

The reassessment machine didn't pause for the result. Cook County released new values for Cicero Township on June 18 with a July 31 appeal deadline, per the Assessor's Office. A second 2026 Board of Review appeal window — covering additional reassessed townships including Oak Park, affecting tax years 2027 through 2029 — opened August 3 and runs through September 1, per Oak Park's Wednesday Journal.

For an investor pricing holding costs, the lesson isn't which assessor to root for. It's that the bill is structurally decoupled from who's in charge — the conveyor belt that produced this cycle's shock notices is still running under the ousted assessor's own signature, months after voters said no more.