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It’s still a pipe dream

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Illinois

Cook County Assessor Joe Berrios is weighing in on a dispute over a key element of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposed 2016 budget, and while City Hall is trying to pump up the news, it is, in fact, quite mixed for the mayor.

In a phone interview today, Berrios said that “personally, I believe” it is technically possible to reprogram aging county computers to implement the expanded homestead exemption that Emanuel wants. “This is the 21st century,” even if the county’s mainframe computer is programmed in the outmoded COBOL language, he said.

Mayoral aides applauded that, because yesterday, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said a technical tweak is not possible, and County Treasurer Maria Pappas said it “might” be possible only if outside computer experts came up with what could be an expensive solution.

However, Berrios added a lot of strings that definitely qualified his backing for the mayor’s position.

For one, any reprogramming or other technical computer fix would have to be in place before the end of the year, “probably by around Dec. 1,” Berrios said. Any delay beyond that could postpone the issuance of next year’s tax bills, forcing local governments to borrow money to tide them over. “I’m not going to be responsible for that.” Berrios said.

Everybody who thinks that the General Assembly will pass this bill and the governor will sign it into law in advance of that December 1st date, please raise your hands.

If the mayor wants this done, he’s gonna have to figure out a way to break the Springfield gridlock.

Good luck with that, dude.

posted by Rich Miller
Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 3:15 pm

Comments

Well, Rauner in Quincy today said a budget deal might come in January. Too late, I guess.

Comment by Frenchie Mendoza Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 3:17 pm
Rauner proved he can’t carry water for Rahm, Rahm knows he can’t deliver votes for Rauner (or won’t?)

Math again, Math always wins.

Comment by Oswego Willy Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 3:23 pm
“In fact, I have a nephew who helps me when my computer freezes up,” continued Berrios, “I bet he’d be perfect for the programming job.”

Comment by Robert the Bruce Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 3:31 pm
Mainframes are modern computers that are constantly upgraded and enhanced with new models and technology. COBOL is still widely used.

I hear lots of “antiquated” computer system excuses when mistakes are made, an agency doesnt want to do something, or someone wants to hand out a contract. These are just excuses.

That being said, the time frame is pretty short to implement a solution regardless of platform.

Comment by Union Dues Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 3:36 pm
Oh man! I thought this was a marijuana post.

(Sorry, I couldn’t help myself.)

Comment by Norseman Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 3:42 pm
Frenchie:: that was January 2019!!!

Comment by Wow Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 3:49 pm
I have no idea why this can’t be implemented immediately. Jim Houlihan’s “7% Cap” was a similar expanded deduction calculated through the homeowners exemption. It’s definitely not a matter of being able to identify which parcels are within the city limits seeing as the AO has no problem identifying those parcels every three years during their revaluation cycle.

Comment by El Duderino Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 3:51 pm
RtB wins the internet today!

Comment by Rich Miller Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 3:58 pm
December 1 of what year? That sounds like a big fix. Simply identifying the course of action between now and then, which is full of holidays and people taking time off, could be a big ask by itself.

Comment by Dirty Red Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:00 pm
“…personally, I believe it is technically possible to reprogram…..”

Nice to see JB hasn’t lost his gift of gibberish!

Comment by Stones Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:15 pm
In a county full of COBOL and Berrios, I choose COBOL.

Comment by nixit71 Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:27 pm
If Preckwinkle wanted to be mayor of Chicago, she should have ran. Quite the vote of confidence in Cook County workers to so readily dismiss what in reality is a simple technology fix.

Comment by Chicagonk Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:27 pm
“I have no idea why this can’t be implemented immediately. Jim Houlihan’s “7% Cap” was a similar expanded deduction calculated through the homeowners exemption. It’s definitely not a matter of being able to identify which parcels are within the city limits seeing as the AO has no problem identifying those parcels every three years during their revaluation cycle.”
———–

First off, understand the computer system software that is in use at Cook County was basically designed to meet the statuatory requirements (Property Tax Code) that existed back in the 1980’s.

Yeah, there’s been lots of tweaks & mods to keep it somewhat current. But this is the type of change that goes across office thresholds (Assessor office to County Clerk to County Treasurer).

Being a BTDT (Been There Done That) with this type of situation, it would be really easy to spend 60+ days just sweating the design on this thing. And that’s BEFORE you cut one single line of code.

For example:

Issue 1; You have to modify an existing tax exemption to add a new assessed valuation eligibility ‘filter’ (max. limit). This is something new that hasn’t been done with any existing property tax valuation. And you better not hard code the limit, because it could change in the future.

You are going to have to edit (hopefully, you can) your existing database model, because there are going to be new data fields required.

You’re going to have to have audit trails and you are going to have to put in place procedures ways to make ‘adjustments’ (Certificate of Errors) for property tax bills which, for whatever reason, didn’t get eligibility for the exemption.

And you are still working in the Assessor’s area…

Issue 2: Now you get to County Clerk tax extension. They are dealing with tax extension, and they actually set down the calculated tax exemption amounts. In this specific case, you are doing something different that is a subtle, but substantive change - The tax extension office is actually determining which exemption the homeowner is eligible for (over $250k/Under $250k).

That’s because you will have to wait until after the countywide equalization factor is applied to calculate out what the ‘true’ fair market value is of the property.

And that all happens at the county Clerk’s level as part of tax extension. So, we are talking a whole lot of extra work being dropped right into the middle of what is already a ‘pressure cooker’ of a working environment. I mean an enormous time crunch.

And in tax extension, EVERYTHING has to be documented and balanced. Bottom line: If the numbers don’t balance, you don’t go forward.

Btw, this work all has to be done and validated BEFORE you ever even start to cut tax rates.

Finally (at some point) after all the tax rates are cut and validated, the County Clerk hands off to the County Treasurer.

Now, there’s a very interesting (and unbelievably difficult) process where the Treasurer gets all the numbers ready for printing of tax bills. But before you actually start printing bills, you have to balance everything back to what the County Clerk extended as taxes for each tax district.

Again, EVERYTHING has to be documented and balanced. Bottom line: If the numbers between Clerk and Treasurer don’t balance, you don’t go forward.

It’s just a touch bit more difficult than you think.

BTDT - Not going back.

Comment by Judgment Day (on the road) Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:27 pm
This is an absolute pipe dream. Rahm should be concentrating his efforts on trying to get Madigan to call Cullerton’s grand bargain bill on property taxes/teachers pension/school funding formula sunset. Getting 71 votes on that bill will be tough too, but it’s not a pipe dream. There’s something in that bill for everyone, unlike the Chicago-alone proposal Rahm is floating.

Comment by Ricardo Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:36 pm
===It’s just a touch bit more difficult than you think.====
I don’t think anyone is saying it would be easy but it’s a drop in the bucket compared to many other computer tweaks. A lot of time for some programmers and consultants? Yes but if there are about a million and half households in Cook you could hire a 100 temps to crunch the numbers the old fashion way with pencil and paper and be done in 60 days. 1,500,000 divided by 100 divided by 60 days = 31 houses a day they would have to analyze. Probably coat about a million and a half to 2 million but it would be done. Throw out the pencil and use an Excel spreadsheet and you could do it in a week. Or just reprogram.

Comment by Can Be Done Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 4:46 pm
The numbers warrant significant spend to make it work. Not sure who advised Toni down the path she took, but the timeline should be defined with an estimate of cost. That would be a productive step toward making a decision, but pointing to how hard it will be is not the way things get done.

Comment by Lincoln Lad Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 5:00 pm
“Throw out the pencil and use an Excel spreadsheet and you could do it in a week”
————–

FYI, An Excel spreadsheet with even 8-10,000 property tax valuation records and that baby’s going to roll over & die.

Ok, I’m going to try and do this a little simpler so you can get a grasp on what’s involved. There’s 2 things you have to get:

1) Cook County already has an older, custom designed and programmed system for processing real estate taxes. This ‘change’ isn’t an ‘append’ onto the system, it’s a set of modifications across multiple different offices on very short notice of how the system currently works.

You have to make sure at every step of the way that when you change something, that you don’t break something else. If you haven’t ever been there, you don’t know. Like I said, BTDT.

2) You aren’t spending most of your time checking all those individual properties. You’ve already got that data - is it correct or not, well, who knows? Your time frame for ‘fixing’ individual parcel records is already passed.

Now it’s all about the processing and reporting/balancing. And validating those sub-totals and summary totals. That’s some really hard work there.

Remember, you are also trying to do this according to statute law which doesn’t even exist yet. The City of Chicago can’t just do this on their own - that legislature has to authorize it. And there’s not even any legislation introduced yet.

So what are you going to program to?

Comment by Judgment Day (on the road) Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 5:11 pm
“The numbers warrant significant spend to make it work. Not sure who advised Toni down the path she took, but the timeline should be defined with an estimate of cost. That would be a productive step toward making a decision, but pointing to how hard it will be is not the way things get done.”
————-

Ok, here’s an approximate time frame - working backwards:

Assumption 1: NO DELAYS IN THE 2015 PAY 2016 RE TAX BILLS. ***NONE***

Comment by Judgment Day (on the road) Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 5:16 pm
Judgement day is on the money with this, I have a mainframe COBOL education (thanks NIU) never wrote a line of it for money but anytime you say we have to go into old code, be worried

Comment by Oneman Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 8:00 pm
Doesn’t sound like anything money can’t fix. Maybe ConAgra can lend us a geek or two.

Comment by PENSIONS ARE OFF LIMITS Thursday, Oct 15, 15 @ 10:28 pm
Rahmbo just threw this out there. If the GA doesn’t act on it, he fine with that. He can say he tried to do everything he could to protect the little guys, but the big bad state wouldn’t help him out. Then he kicks back and rakes in the money from everyone. Never let a good gridlock go to waste.

Comment by PublicServant Friday, Oct 16, 15 @ 8:03 am
Oh please.

“Dear homeowner — based on our calculations from the property tax bill we can see on the county website, please accept this homeowner’s Rebate for All Hardworking Mensch Check (RAHM Check).

I regret that the County elected officials were unable to fix their computers to deduct it from your bill, but I got a couple bearded dudes from 1871 to scrape their website and send you this check from City funds.

Don’t spend it in Niles or Oak Lawn.
Sincerely,
Rahm

Comment by vibes Friday, Oct 16, 15 @ 8:10 am
Bet they won’t use the we can’t reprogram excuse when it comes to implementing a progressive income tax.

Comment by Midway Gardens Friday, Oct 16, 15 @ 1:40 pm