Lake assessor says free lunch is over for Mickey D's

CROWN POINT | Lake County Assessor Hank Adams can report a few successes in his first year in office.

"We found two Walgreens built in 2007 and 2008, one CVS and one McDonald's in North Township that weren't on the tax rolls," Adams said. The businesses are about to get some tax bills that will include back payments.

He said they were discoveries to his office because he inherited a field inspection staff of one person from his predecessor who was forced to cut personnel because of shrinking government revenue and an office badly in need of reorganization.

"We probably should have had half a dozen field people," he said, adding that putting new businesses on the tax rolls is in the public interest, since every property owner shares the burden of financing local government services.

"When we find these new properties, we help out every other taxpayer in the county," Adams said.

In addition to finding new real estate wealth to be taxed, his office also has cut the backlog of taxpayer appeals to 6,000 from 13,000 this year.

"I knew this office was a mess before I came here, but it was really worse than I thought," said Adams, the first Lake Republican to win a countywide office in five decades.

Adams said he reorganized his staff and brought on part-time workers to sort through the backlog that has left some appeals unresolved for six years.

"I don't think it's fair for people to have to wait that long," Adams said. "They could lose their property in that much time. I took the 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 appeals together, do the oldest ones and then trend the other years, settling five or six all at once. That's a lot faster."

He said he will keep chipping away at the remaining backlog because he expects a tsunami of them next year when county land and building owners are notified of new tax values. The values will be announced at the conclusion of a 21-month effort to reassess all 247,000 agricultural, residential and business properties.

Adams said the biggest adjustment last year may have been experienced by members of the public demanding to speak to the county assessor about their taxes.

"I pick up the phone," Adams said. "Some can't believe they can call here and get me, but I have no problem taking phone calls from someone who is upset. A lot of times when you look at both sides of it, you can work it out to where it's fair to the other county taxpayers and fair to the property owner."