Welcome to the Assessor's Office website of Sugar Grove Township. It has been created as a service in providing quick and convenient access to information in our Township and to improve the equity, efficiency and transparency on behalf of taxpayers and taxing jurisdictions.  All requests for information must be in writing either on a FOIA request  form, email or letterhead.  Please refer to our FOIA informational page on this webpage. 

     The Assessor is responsible for assessing property at one-third of market value or fair cash value with the exception of farmland, railroad or coal properties which are properties valued by the State of Illinois Department of Revenue.

     It is always encouraged and highly recommended to discuss your property assessment first and foremost with your local Assessor before ever filing with the Board of Review.  Often times you will find that you can avoid the filing and preparation of evidence and taking time off of work to defend your assessment, when your Assessor can do it for you locally thereby, neither party will have to attend the formal hearing and prepare evidence that the Assessor’s office already has available to you.  The Assessor is the only elected official with exception to your States’ Attorney that requires a formal education and 2-yr certification along with yearly continuing education and is working for you.    If you have any questions or concerns please continue utilizing your local Assessor’s office so that we may better serve your needs and concerns directly. 

        Fair Cash Value (The Assessor’s Job) is to value each neighborhood individually and averaging (3) years worth of sales, in this market; this will not work.  As an example:  If we have (2) neighborhoods next to each other that are not at all similar; in one neighborhood all of the sales were from 2008, in the other neighborhood all of the sales were from 2009 and 2010.  If the Assessor were to take a median sales price in each, the neighborhoods with all 2008 sales would be at a much higher level than the adjoining neighborhood making that neighborhood artificially high. By adjusting for date of sales, we can get both neighborhoods at a similar assessment level in relation to the value as of 01/01/2011.  Also, if you go before the Board of Review or Property Tax Appeal Board, sales closer to the 01/01/2011 date have been previously and will be given more weight and foreclosure sales will be considered.  The County Equalization process does not have to meet the same criteria and does not take into account individual neighborhoods and equalizes the whole township by averaging 3 years worth of sales.  The Assessor is responsible to assess each neighborhood at 33.33% of value as of 01/01/2011 and in order to accomplish this, the date of sale must be taken into account.  The county does not take neighborhoods into account and applies a formula to the entire township.  The equalized assessed value is then used to apportion the tax burden over all property owners. All local governments, townships, schools, fire districts, forest preserve districts, park districts, libraries, etc., receive their income from taxes levied against property values as determined by the Assessor. The Assessor does not levy, collect, or distribute tax revenues. 

Get detailed information about properties in Sugar Grove Township. Search by parcel number, address, subdivision, and sales information
 Click here to start.

Click here for the Treasurer’s office website.            

Sugar Grove Township was published in the Beacon News on September 9, 2011
(download publication here) .

Assessment notices were mailed from the County of Kane on September 6, 2011 to all property owners in the township as 2011 is a quadrennial year that requires all homeowners be given proper notice. If you have any questions on your assessment, please contact your Assessor's office PRIOR to filing a formal Board of Review complaint.  Many times the Assessor's office may be able to assist your concerns and are able to discuss an assessment change based on data you provide that otherwise, may not have had on file, secondly, the Assessor understands the current market conditions and the concerns of the residents and has the same window of opportunity to make a revision before the filing deadline of OCTOBER 11, 2011 and still keep within the parameters of uniformity within the district.

Due to this time of year as in any year when notices are mailed out, we receive many calls and will address your concerns at our earliest convenience and calls are being returned in which the order they are received, however, be certain we will get back to all residents in order to allow an opportunity for you to prepare evidence for filing with Board of Review if you are not satisfied with the result received from your local Assessor. 

I encourage you to use this website to contact the Assessor’s office with your questions and concerns and provide us any additional data you would like us to review before returning your call.  We have provided two options to contact us by webpage:

• “Complaint Form” and;
• “Contact Us”.

These are great tools to help assist you in a review of your assessment and we certainly understand that foreclosures are driving the market and we continue to see market values decline.  We truly want to assist your concerns, so please use the “Contact Us” field or “Complaint Form” fields to help expedite the process. 

Thank you for your patience and assistance. 

Laura E. Ross-Assessor  

 SEPTEMBER 19, 2011

Illinois Hardest Hit:  was started recently by state government that addresses homeowners  that are having financial difficulty paying their tax bills.  This program allows eligible participants to receive up to $25,000 over 18 months as a 10-year loan to keep mortgages current and make ongoing payments, including fees and penalties. The loan is forgiven over the last five years of the 10-year term, and carries zero interest. Funds for the program are supplied by the U.S. Department of the Treasury. Illinois is among 18 states and Washington, D.C. that received funding for the program earlier this year. The Illinois Hardest Hit program will be administered by the Illinois Housing Development Authority (IHDA).

The Assessor determines the assessed valuation of all properties within a taxing district, not your tax bill and properties were reduced in assessed value last year and continue to drop rapidly.   However; the question becomes, “Why then did my tax bill go up this year if the Assessor reduced my value”? 

Property taxes are determined by the budgeting and spending functions of the local taxing bodies.  Local tax districts set their budgets each year.  Local governments use property tax revenues to pay for the services rendered to the residents in their district. 

Local Tax Rate is determined by the combined spending of all taxing districts, including the county, the forest preserve district, townships, community colleges, schools, villages, fire districts, libraries, parks, etc.  Each government prepares a budget, requests the revenues needed, and submits the request to the county clerk. The county clerk calculates the tax rate based on their requests. The local tax rate is then applied against all property assessments in the district to produce the Property Tax Amount for each property.

Prior to 1991, when assessed valuations were increasing by 10% due to market value inflation, taxing districts could ask for and receive a 10% increase in tax revenue. Large tax increases were caused by inflation driven property value increases AND large budget increases requested by local taxing districts. In short, local tax districts benefited from the inflationary market value increases of local properties.

In 1991, the General Assembly passed the "Property Tax Limitation Act" better known as the "Tax Cap" law.  Because of this law, overall tax increases are now limited to 5% or CPI, whichever is less, each year. Even when assessed valuation increases by more than 5%, tax districts can only receive 5% more money than they received the previous year. When assessments increase by more than 5%, the tax rates are automatically forced down.  However, today’s market now is reflective of assessment decreases, and significant values reductions are being made, forcing tax rates upward.  Tax caps were not intended to reduce property taxes or even freeze them. They were designed to allow reasonable increases in revenue dollars for tax districts while protecting property owners against excessive tax increases each year. If a tax district needs more than a 5% increase, they may ask the voters for a higher increase by referendum. If the referendum passes, then taxes will increase by more than 5% in that district.

The General Assembly is constantly asked to repeal the tax cap law or amend it to allow higher tax increases without referendum. If you are concerned about higher tax increases, your legislator and governor need to hear from you, the taxpayer!  Please call or write your state legislator and the governor's office. Advise them that you believe the tax caps are working and should not be changed in any way. Remind them that if any tax district needs more than a 5% increase in spending, they are permitted to ask the voters for a tax increase, over and above the 5% limit, by means of a referendum. Changing the tax cap laws would allow tax districts to increase property taxes without any limits and without referendum.