State: Perry Properties Fairly Assessed
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[In the state's eyes, real estate in Perry County is being fairly assessed. The Perry County Board of Tax Review will hear last minute complaints in April and 2012 real estate tax bills will likely go into the mail in June.
That would set up a payment schedule that includes a first installment in July and a second installment in September, the same "on time" schedule as a year ago.
Perry County has been issued a revised tentative property assessment equalization factor of 1.0000, according to Brian Hamer, Director of the Illinois Department of Revenue.
The property assessment equalization factor, often called the "multiplier," is the method used to achieve uniform property assessments among counties, as required by law. This equalization is particularly important because some of the state's 6,600 local taxing districts overlap into two or more counties (e.g. school districts, junior college districts, fire protection districts). If there were no equalization among counties, substantial inequities among taxpayers with comparable properties would result.
State law requires property in Illinois to be assessed at one-third of it smart value. Farm property is assessed differently, with farm home sites and dwellings subject to regular assessing and equalization procedures, but with farmland and farm buildings assessed according to standards based on productivity.
The equalization factor is determined annually for each county by comparing the sales price of individual properties sold over the past three years to the assessed value placed on those properties by the county supervisor of assessments/county assessor.
If this three-year average level of assessment is one-third of market value, the equalization factor will be one. If the average level of assessment is greater than one-third of market value, the equalization factor will be less than one. And if the average level of assessment is less than one-third of market value, the equalization factor will be greater than one.
Assessments in Perry County are at 33.29 percent of market value, based on sales of properties in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
The equalization factor currently being assigned is for 2011 taxes, payable in 2012.
Last year's equalization factor for Perry County was 1.0000.
The tentative factor is subject to change if the County Board of Review takes actions which significantly affect the county assessments or if local officials or others can present data showing that the Department of Revenue's estimates of the average level of assessments in the county should be adjusted. A public hearing on the tentative multiplier will be held between 20 and 30 days after the tentative factor is published in a newspaper in the Du Quoin Evening Call.