Property tax bills to be sent — late, as usual — in early October

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Updated: November 10, 2011 10:55AM

The second installment of Cook County property tax bills are expected to be mailed out the first week of October, Treasurer Maria Pappas said Thursday.

In all, 1.7 million bills will go out and property owners will need to pay up by the first week of November.

Technically, Illinois law requires the fall tax bills to be paid by Aug. 1, but that’s been impossible for more than three decades: Not since 1978 have the second installment bills gone out on time in Cook County.

The delay, officials say, can be blamed on the lengthy process of calculating the bill, including reassessing property, appeals of those assessments, getting the multiplier from state revenue officials and setting tax rates for all local governments.

The delay can mean taxing districts from libraries to schools may have to borrow money, an expensive proposition in a down economy, to keep operations going until they get their piece of the property tax pie.

Pappas, whose office is charged with printing up the bills and mailing them out, said she’s never heard even a single gripe from taxpayers during her nearly 13 years in office.

“Nobody — nobody in the entire world has ever come to my office saying, ‘Please give me my bill early and let me pay early. I walk down the street and I hear, ‘Thank you for not sending the bills out early.’ ”