Homeowners in Pike County can breathe a sigh of relief–for now. The Illinois Department of Revenue (IDOR) has issued a tentative property assessment multiplier of 1.0000 for the year, keeping things steady, according to an announcement from the State of Illinois. This figure is a crucial component in ensuring that property taxes remain fair and balanced across the state's tangled landscape of overlapping local taxing districts.
The multiplier works to even out the inconsistencies in property assessments, which can otherwise lead to substantially unfair tax burdens. By law, Illinois properties should be assessed at one-third of their market value, but different areas, as one might expect, can wildly vary. Farm properties, for example, get appraised differently, with homesites and dwellings following the standard procedure while farmland and buildings get assessed on productivity. It takes effort to not only understand but also maintain such a balance in the state's taxation scales across all 6,600 local taxing districts.
Pike County's assessments are sitting at 33.42% of market value, a number crunched from 2021 through 2023 property sales data. While last year also saw a tentative factor of 1.0000, things could change. The IDOR notes that the tentative factor could be adjusted if significant assessment changes arise from the County Board of Review, or if new evidence suggests that the initial assessment estimates are off-kilter. A public hearing is scheduled within 20-30 days from this announcement to give locals a chance to weigh in, as per the State of Illinois.
For the full scope of Pike County’s tentative multiplier details, head over to the Illinois government's news release.
