April

Green Garden Township Assessor’s April, 2022 Report For review at May 9, 2022 Township meeting

Jane Bushong, CIAO Assessor, Green Garden Township

On-going, standard Assessor tasks/projects

• Appraiser, Real Estate, attorney, county and resident requests
• Visit new construction sites to apply assessed values as soon as occupancy is complete.
• Data entry into PAMS system: property record card information, Sales, Permits, Appeals, photos, exemption paperwork, correspondence, new construction drawings and inquiries into PAMS.
• Appeal work: Soft appeals in the spring and BOR appeals late summer-fall.
• Commercial / Industrial property assessment work and comparables
• Subdivision and rural comparable reports created & maintained
• Land AV comparable reports created & maintained
• Commercial / Industrial comparable reports created & maintained
• General office and personnel management
• Site visits as needed to determine new construction, farm qualifications, verification of PRC’s, updates to field check & new construction lists.
• Management tasks: Assessor office expenses and reconciliation, monthly reports, budget reviews, staff payroll and training, IT issues, office supply/inventory management, data backups and processing.
• Equalizing neighborhoods – continuing work on compiling data, sales, updates, etc. to review and identify inequities and adjust assessments if justified and timely.

Assessor Office statistics for March, 2022

• Entered / Updated new Sales data records– 6
• Entered / Updated Exemption data records – 4
• Entered / Updated Frankfort building permits – 8
• Entered / Updated Will County building permits – 15
• Entered / Updated Road Permits – 5
• Entered / Updated Property Records – 123
• Entered / Updated Comparables – 170
• Inquiries (customers, appraisers, misc.) – 32
• Soft appeals in process – 7
• SOA transmissions – 2
• SOA tasks / adjustments – 4

March tasks and information

• Assessor Budget
  • Met with Bill Wager and Township Attorney on both Friday, April 8^th and Monday, April 18^th to review Assessor budget details.

• REMINDER – Soft Appeals now open

• The 2022 Green Garden Township Assessor Soft Appeal forms and instructions are now posted on the GGT website. Additional copies are available in the back of the Town Hall. Due to popular demand, the 2022 deadline for Soft Appeals has been extended to May 27, 2022.

• REMINDER – Renewal Exemptions
  • These are the exemptions which normally require a new application each year, such as the Senior Freeze, Disability Exemptions,
  • For the last two years, the state allowed an automatic roll-over of these exemptions. This year, a submitted application renewal will be required. The Supervisor of Assessments is mailing out renewal forms on April 15th to those who previously had those exemptions.

• 2022 Exemption Event Dates which the SOA office is hosting:
  • The SOA office will be hosting eight Exemption Events in 2022 throughout Will County. Many are for residents only (in certain areas). Those events open to Green Garden residents are as follows:
    • May 14, 2022 Saturday 8:00 am – 1:00 pm at the Will County Supervisor of Assessment office, located at 302 N Chicago St, Joliet.
    • May 25, 2022 Wednesday 10:00 am – 2:00 pm at the Romeoville Recreation Center, located at 900 W Romeo Rd., Romeoville.
    • June 14, 2022 Tuesday 10:00 am – 2:00 pm at First United Methodist Church located at 401 E Kahler Rd, Wilmington
    • August 24 – 28, 2022 Wednesday – Sunday 10:00 am – 8:00 pm at the Will County Fair Atrium, located at 710 S West Street, Peotone, IL
  • Copies of these exemption dates area also available on the Will County SOA website.

• ASSESSMENT EDUCATION –

Equalization

Equalization is very important point to understand in the Assessment process……

Assessors strive to maintain a uniform level of assessment within their jurisdictions by using recognized appraisal techniques to determine market values and by reassessing property on a regular basis to that market values are as accurate as possible.

A process called “assessment/sales ratio study “is used to find the ratio of property sale prices to their assessed values. The assessment/sales ratio study shows whether or not assessments within a given area actually average 33 1/3 percent of market value.

If the results indicate that assessments are either higher or lower than 33 1/3%, a blanket % increase or decrease, called an “equalization factor “ or “ multiplier “ is calculated and applied to all non-farm property to being the level of assessment to 33 1/3 percent.

The application of this uniform percentage increase or decrease to assessed values is called “equalization “.

Summary: When the Assessor is unable to adequately provide a uniform level of assessment within the township, and the market value of most properties has increased significantly; the county will then apply the same multiplier (increase) to ALL residential properties regardless of current assessed value in order to equalize that entire township’s assessments.