According to a new analysis prepared exclusively for Crain's by the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation and the Center for Municipal Finance at the University of Chicago, the property tax bill paid by the average Chicago homeowner could rise hundreds of dollars a year as office tower owners pay less because of the depressed value of their property. Homeowners effectively would pick up a bigger share of the tax load. Audio: Wirepoints’ Mark Glennon says Chicago pension buyout plan mostly shifts debt rather than eliminating it, property tax surge doubles inflation over three decades – Chicago’s Morning Answer
April 3, 2026
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Chicago’s political leadership is floating a pension buyout program as evidence it is seriously addressing the city’s thirty-six-billion-dollar unfunded pension liability, but Mark Glennon, founder of the Illinois policy research organization Wirepoints, said that the proposal moves debt from one column to another rather than reducing it, and that the broader fiscal picture facing the city continues to deteriorate across every measurable dimension. Audio here.
Expect no retraction or apology. This what they do.
The state’s existing buyout program for its own pensions is the precedent for Chicago, which should be a warning: Look out for similar exaggerated claims and shoddy analysis.
Illinois lost another 54,000 tax filers and dependents, net, according to the IRS. Since 2000, fleeing taxpayers have taken $94 billion of annual adjusted gross income with them.
Inevitable
… until the homeowners can’t or won’t pay. Value of residences will decline as taxes increase and increasing numbers of the owners will be under water with diminished incentives to make mortgage and tax payments. Looks to me with a downhill train that’s lost its brakes. Just over 120 years since the Wreck of the Old 97.
With my downstate jitters in high gear hoping that there is not some sort of statewide tax or fee hikes devoted to the mess that is Chicago.
Chicago is rotting from the inside out
It’s not “could”– it is “how soon?” Aon Building just sold for 47 percent of what it was worth only 4 years ago. Every banker, broker and property manager in town knows the drop is going to be at least 25 percent or more across the board for most commercial assessments. Time to unload your condos in Chicago right now.
But the mayor has promised no residential property tax increases! I suspect that this is a promise he simply cannot keep under any circumstances.
Mayor BJ can’t even balance his own check book.
Higher prop taxes coming for all Sheeetcago property owners.
Bend over, grab your ankles and kiss your a__ goodbye!!