Members, uh we provided a I'm Larry Rogers Jr.

Uh of the Cook County Board of Review Third District.

Uh Chairman George Cartness uh is here, stepped away for a moment, so he may be back uh to participate.

Um in any event, um while the number in our budget is different from our last year's budget uh by a little over three million dollars.

It's in essence uh essentially uh budget neutral changes because we have implemented uh our our office staff has unionized.

So many of the increases have to do with uh mandatory contractually obligated increases in pay.

Um we are an agency that is approximately 94 percent uh staff, meaning uh that's how we process appeals uh through analysts and other support staff.

Uh so there's very little ability for us to uh uh implement the reductions without significant changes in our productivity and efficiency.

Um I'm going to have our secretary of the agency, Liliana Esperita.

I'm mispronounced the escarpita.

I shouldn't know how to do that by now.

She's gonna go through the presentation, but I wanted to just summarize it by saying um what we're seeing at the agency is significant increases every year in the number of appeals, as an example.

Uh the city try is typically our largest uh filing period.

Um yet last year we saw the largest number of appeals ever, which with 290,000 pins being appealed from the northern try.

The next try that we are currently opening is the southern trial try, which is the south suburbs, where we will be seeing where we have seen astronomical increases in the assessed values and the corresponding taxes.

So I say that to say we're expecting to see record numbers of appeals out of the South Suburbs, which makes our staffing that much more critical if we're going to try to get back on track with uh the tax bills.

With that, I'll turn it over to Ms.

Escarpita.

Uh thank you, Commissioner.

Um Chairman Daly and uh Board of Commissioners.

Uh for the record, my name is Liliana S.

Carpita, and I am the Secretary of the Board, also joined by our uh wonderful staff that compromise not just the finance team but the broader operations team, William O'Shields, Chief Deputy Commissioner, uh Ms.

Deborah Brown, who is our deputy secretary, and Jeron Bland, who um is our manager of purchasing and up and operations as well.

Um as Commissioner Rogers stated, um, our personnel costs uh are largely represented in our budget, 94 percent um precisely.

We are comprised of 177 FTEs, and the remaining six percent of our budget uh covers and supports essential operating expenses.

Um given the reporting period that was provided to us, um we are currently or we were current at that time six point three percent under budget.

Uh that is consistent uh with our uh positive variants to date, uh and that is primarily driven uh by operating expenditures that uh take place or hit our bottom line um towards the second half of the year.

Um again, through the midpoint of this fiscal year, we are on track uh given our projected spending plan.

Uh next slide, please.

Um as always we want to put our work into perspective.

Um we just concluded the 2025 uh tax tax session earlier uh this summer, um, accounting for um various highlights uh that you have before you over 290,000 appeals.

Um that equates uh to over 530 uh pins, parcels that are reviewed at the board of review by each uh individual commissioner.

Um we had over 200 community outreach events.

Um also uh our staff um conducted over 11,000 hearings.

Um that number is always uh striking, um, just again given our capacity and our um resources.

Uh we process nearly 1,600 uh exempt parcels.

And um again, this this work does not uh even touch on uh what we do at PTAB around uh the defense uh of assessments for the county at large.

Um next slide, please.

Um as mentioned, PTAB uh and the work at PTAB is a year-round uh responsibility for the board.

Our uh attorneys, valuation professionals uh and clerical staff prepare evidence, represent the county at hearings, negotiate settlements uh and manage cases until they are fully resolved uh before PTAB, often spanning multiple years.

Um in 2025 alone, the board defended nearly 80,000 parcels before the Illinois uh property tax appeal board.

Uh again, this work is essential uh to protecting the integrity of uh the assessments and the assessment process, um, and it saves the county uh or it helps safeguard and preserve over 825 million dollars million dollars in property tax revenue uh from 2020 to 2024.

Again, that's it's essential and critical uh to protect tax base across uh supporting supporting schools, municipalities, and public safety, and of course other essential services.

Next slide, please.

Um, as a commissioner uh mentioned, um our week our our workload is always increasing.

We've seen that consistently increase uh throughout the years.

Um and we want to uh point to the ongoing really notable work that is taking place across the property tax um agencies.

Uh we are working collaboratively um not just to reform um the system at large, uh, but we're also uh seeing improvements around data sharing with the assessor's office.

Um we are also working collaboratively to not just uh realize these efficiencies from a data standpoint, but also working to standardize valuation methodologies and of course uh increase consistency across the board, all while uh maintaining the board's statutory uh independent authority.

Next slide, please.

Uh as mentioned, we are seeing a growing uh demand by taxpayers uh for this independent and impartial evidence evidence-based review.

Um we uh know that the public's expectations around fairness, transparency, and accountability continue to drive this work.

Um as noted, in 2025, we saw a record number of appeals, which was over 290,000.

That is a record number, historic number for the board of review.

Uh next slide, please.

Looking ahead, uh we are of course uh going to realize uh the first uh annualized impact of the collective bargaining bargaining agreement and FI 2027.

Um we are in the final stages of uh implementing all of the economic um uh obligation uh by way of the collective bargaining agreement.

Um we are well on our way to do that.

Uh of course, our operating budget had to also absorb uh costs associated with that um placement or that transition of 103 employees onto the the AFSME pay scale.

And um again, we're we're anticipating greater costs, not just around obligation, but potential expansion of the of the bargaining unit in 2027, which is again why we are requesting 27 million dollars that is largely representative of contractual obligations uh around salaries and of course um all else that has to be uh incorporated around compression for our supervisors and our managers, that is essential to maintaining a stable workforce.