Mokena's Front Porch Podcast
Welcome to Mokena’s Front Porch – THE podcast for Mokena history and community!
Nestled in the heart of Chicagoland, Mokena began as a small farming community that flourished after the Rock Island train line arrived in 1852. Today, with a population of over 20,000, its rich past continues to shape its future.
Your hosts:
🔹 Matt – A lifelong Mokenian, local historian, and author of two books on Mokena history. His blog, Matt’s Old Mokena, serves as the foundation for many of our episodes, bringing forgotten stories of the village back to life.
🔹 Israel – A passionate storyteller who grew up hearing firsthand WWII accounts from his grandfathers. Since moving to Mokena in 2016, he has embraced its history, working through technical challenges as a first-time podcaster to bring this show to life. He’s a BIG fan of Mokena!
Join us as we explore the people, places, and moments that make Mokena special. Visit MokenasFrontPorch.com for more stories, updates, and ways to connect. You can also find us on social media!
Pull up a chair, get comfortable, and step back in time with us on Mokena’s Front Porch.
Mokena's Front Porch Podcast
Assessor Joe Kral - Talking Tax Bills and Mokena Community
Frankfort Township Assessor Joe Kral is running unopposed in the April 1, 2025, consolidated election. In this episode, we get to know Joe, explore the role of the Assessor, and break down the property tax process—from how your home is valued to paying your tax bill. We also discuss how this important position impacts homeowners and the steps you can take if you disagree with your property assessment.
Learn more about the Frankfort Township Assessor’s Office at www.frankfortassessor.com. For all things Mokena Elections, including candidate interviews, election updates, and local event coverage, visit our website.
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Find Matt's Blog here: Matt's Old Mokena
Photo & Artwork Credit: Jennifer Medema & Leslie V. Moore Jr.
Do you have a question, comment or maybe an idea for an episode, you can email us at:
MokenasFrontPorch@gmail.com
All right, well, Joe, thank you for sitting down with me, Assessor Joe Krall, and so we're going to talk. You don't have a challenger this election, so the idea.
Speaker 2:Nobody wants my job, nobody does. I mean really to talk.
Speaker 1:You don't have a challenger this election, so the idea we had was instead is kind of talk about use this to talk about the process of assessing properties and how it goes from your job to the property tax bill that people get in their mail. So first, why don't you just tell us a little bit about yourself? Where'd you grow up? Siblings, parents, things like that.
Speaker 2:I'm an only child. I grew up in South Holland, actually started in Markham to South Holland, lived there, went to Thornwood High School, graduated in 86. Long story short, I went to school for journalism, political science. I wanted to be Mike Royko, who was a writer for the Chicago Tribune and Sun Times.
Speaker 2:The reality was, while I was in college, one of my professors was a good friend of mine and he's like well, why are you doing this? Because the media itself is in its downward spiral and, as it planned out, we don't really have newspapers anymore. There's, uh, it's all you know. The fourth estate is not what it used to be. So, uh, I, when I was in college, I was putting myself through school doing heating and air conditioning for Sears, okay, and when I got out, I could get a job at the times, or the Hammond times at the time, and it was nine dollars an hour, or I could continue working at Sears for seventeen dollars an hour doing he an air conditioning, and I did that for about 15 years I worked. My area was 79th Street in the city, south from the lakefront to Halst, and, uh, I pretty much spent every day of you know, 15 years driving around fixing refrigerators, getting furnaces, air conditioners going and all that stuff are you a generally handy person still today?
Speaker 2:yes, yeah I, I, I, I prefer to tinker on things now I mean, it's now computers and so forth and a lot of it you don't give you the option to repair things, and I'm a big right-to-repair person. I think that people should have the right to fix the stuff they own, but now you've got so many companies that are denying you that ability and won't sell you parts and do all of those things. That's a whole other aspect of life. So I bought a business when I was in college called Roto Spray, and I ran it with my uncle, which is Debbie's father, my father and myself.
Speaker 2:Well, debbie, debbie Blank, I'm sorry your cousin, right Cousin, yes, and they were operating out of South Holland when they moved out here. Both of them moved out here in about 1999, 2000, and moved rotospray out here. I bought a second business called XL Addenda that I operate out of my parents' basement. It gave me the ability to quit being a refrigerator repairman because after a while those people tend to wear out their knees. You're on your knees all the time what was that second business?
Speaker 2:excel addenda. I modified switches. So a gentleman I used to read the chicago tribune on tuesdays and sundays specifically for business opportunities and a gentleman in Darien was selling his switch modification business, c&k, went through the. We did a lot of work for them and then they moved their whole company in 2004 to Costa Rica, which they offered me to go down there and do my business down there. But the reality was I wasn't me to go down there and bring my business down there. But the reality was is I wasn't ready to go down there and possibly lose your business. And then you're just sitting in Costa Rica with nothing.
Speaker 1:So that kind of end that business then.
Speaker 2:It put a damper on it. I mean, I still ran it for a few years afterwards doing lead tinning and trimming and so forth. But I went and got my appraisal license and I wanted to be an appraiser. Because I mean back times, 2003, 2004,. Everybody's selling houses, every housewife is becoming a real estate agent, they're putting out their signs and everybody sells houses and you need appraisals to sell said houses and the appraisal business was booming. One of my father's friends now. At the time to get an appraisal license you had to intern with an actual appraiser for a year. It wasn't now. You have to get a college. There's a college degree in it. But at the time you had to intern and one of my father's friends happened to be the assessor here and offered to take me on as an apprentice. Actually, never did the apprentice work. I started working for the assessor's office and it was an interesting beginning in seeing the way that it was run.
Speaker 1:Who was the assessor at that time? Paul Ruff.
Speaker 2:I eventually defeated him in an election. Going forward First day calls me into the office and he points up to three monkeys and he says this is you. I don't want you to hear nothing. And it was a hear nothing, see nothing, say nothing. And he looks at me. He goes that's you, you don't hear nothing, you don't see nothing, and you don't say nothing. And I'm sitting back and I'm like this is a job. This is not something you know. Whatever the mafia, whatever I, he ended up getting sick.
Speaker 2:I took over the residential aspect. I worked on a whole project to take every single house in this township, take photographs of it, put it on to the website. And when he came back, people were like oh, this guy, joe, he's really helpful and nice. And I got fired and I think it was because he thought I was a threat and I said all right, well, maybe I'll think of running. I didn't really think about running in politics for that point. I did in 2009.
Speaker 2:I had acquired my credentials, got the signatures in 20 degree weather or 20 degrees below weather, two weeks, the high temperature was minus six and I got all of my signatures, which, of course, got thrown out because my father rest in peace, great guy. And on our petition sheets I would go out with 15 names or 15 blank spaces and at the end of the night I'd come home and there's only like seven and I would just go out the next day with a blank one rather than trying to screw around. And in his infinite helping out he took them to St Mary's for his and had all the nuns sign and unfortunately I signed it as being the witness to those signatures. And so out of three of 56 petitions I was said I was the witness that I wasn't, so they threw them all out for a pattern of fraud and so I had to run as a write-in.
Speaker 2:It was a hard battle but I got 6,000 write-in votes to his 3,000 not write-in votes and for the first time in Illinois history a city incumbent was beaten by not write-in votes. And for the first time in Illinois history a city incumbent was beaten by a write-in. I don't have the most write-in votes. There was a guy in Peoria who was on the school board who got sick and didn't get his petitions in. I don't care, none of that matters, but 6,000 people wrote my name down and it's extremely motivating to do the best job possible. I mean, they didn't just go in and circle in an oval, they actually wrote the name down.
Speaker 1:And what was the? How did you get to that point? How did you get 6,000 people to write your name in? What were you doing that election?
Speaker 2:I grabbed every one of my friends that I'd ever met, that sort of believed in me, and we manned every polling place. I didn't stop when they kicked me off the ballot. I just changed all of my signs to write in Joe Craw. I explained my situation. I had 20 coffees that I walked into neighborhoods and talked about how property taxes work and how when you elect somebody, they should be responsible to you, not above you, and that's you know most of government to state. We elect people and like they're above us. No, no, they're just. They were just decided to do the service job that was needed, yeah.
Speaker 1:It was a. Was the process different then? Because? Was there a primary? Did you go through a primary? Is that how?
Speaker 2:Consolidated elections differ than general elections because there's no normally a set primary. In this case I ran as an independent. I didn't run as a Republican. I didn't run as a Democrat, I ran as an independent. He ran as a Republican, so he didn't get signatures, he just had a caucus to put him in. I collected signatures, not primary, but actually for the election.
Speaker 1:Tell us how you ended up in Mokina, or maybe you touched on that a little bit In 2003,.
Speaker 2:My mother passed away. She had a battle of cancer and my father a pretty strong, stoic kind of a guy I didn't think was handling it so well you know, come home dishes in the sink, been there for a day, you know, can't do this and he needed that push. I was living in the city. I think I needed to start to grow up a little bit. Instead of having fun in the city and doing that, I moved back home and was working at the assessor's office full time and it was seven months later that I got fired. But I mean, sort of like, you get into this grind of you're helping out and you're feeling motivated to accomplish something in government or something in any business and you don't want to leave every day, to drive an hour, to come back an hour in the day, Uh. So I moved home. Um, it was, uh, a change.
Speaker 2:I hadn't lived at home for, you know, 15 years and then you're home for a while and while and that's how I moved to Mokina. I mean, I've had ties here before, Even when I worked for Sears. I used to come back here in the 80s and the 90s and to see where Mokina has grown is insane. I know most of the people that are running for offices now worked on their campaigns even before I got involved in politics. I originally got involved in politics. They were trying to change the name of Mokina Junior High and I didn't understand it because I mean, he hadn't been superintendent for all that long and they were going to change it for his name and it was going to cost ungodly amounts of money, which didn't really make sense, because I like Mokina Junior High who were they going to name it?
Speaker 2:after. I can't think of his name. He was the superintendent at the time, but I don't want to say what it was without knowing it didn't pass, which was great, because the cost that we incur for the services that we pay for keep going up. And if you keep inflating them even more than that, then they go up even higher quicker and that occurs, but that's how I made it.
Speaker 1:That's how I got here. Okay, and you're married and have a son. You want to talk about your family a little bit.
Speaker 2:I'm married to Theodora Cross. She's the best decision I've ever made in my life. She keeps me grounded and tells me when I dress funny and don't look right and don't wear that jacket if you go on this show. She did not like the sweater choice, but you know it is what it is. My son, joey, is 10. He goes through Mokina Elementary Schools. He tends to be older than his age acts. Older causes me more problems getting a little wise cracky.
Speaker 1:So what do you guys do for fun? What's fun for you guys?
Speaker 2:We as a family my cousin Debbie and myself we own a house in northern Wisconsin in Aqua oh wonderful. I love to fish. I like to golf. We're not as much anymore with the kid because it's now function with the child. Get the child out to do you know the things that he has to do and that tends to assert my ability to go out and golf for four hours. I wish golf took less time. If golf took two hours I could get away with it, but it's not. It's four to five hours and you got your family to deal with and the wife.
Speaker 1:Well, something we did, we put our son in. I'm nowhere near a great golfer but, I, picked it up when I was younger and I can go a couple times a year. But we did one of the golf class this past summer with hopes maybe in the next couple of years we'll get there together, cause it is nice getting out on a course and, uh, I would love to go out with my boy.
Speaker 2:You know, we, we, we put them in the park district program a couple of times with golf, um, we tried golf lessons early, but it just didn't click. He he's gotten into Taekwondo, oh great. So he's now a second degree black belt at 10. He's a member of their leadership team, which means that he actually teaches taekwondo at the dojo. He's a member of their demonstration team, so he goes out and does all the tumbles and so forth.
Speaker 2:Very cool. He's gotten now into mug tai, which is kickboxing kind of a deal, so it gives him the confidence he can do the splits.
Speaker 1:I don't even know it didn't come out of my DNA.
Speaker 2:There's just no way.
Speaker 1:How funny. That's great. Well, as we said when we got started, you don't have a challenger this election. Have you ever had a challenger, since you ran I did the first four years.
Speaker 1:George Peros Okay, yes, but one thing that we always hear when tax bills come out and the complaint you get is Joe, why are you raising our taxes? Nope, and that's not the case, and that's kind of what we want to talk about tonight. We'll talk about the process, how it goes from your office to the tax bill that we get and who all's involved in that.
Speaker 1:Let me start with kind of give everybody a general overview of a couple of the offices being. Start with the assessor. The job of the assessor to place a value, so everything is based upon assessments.
Speaker 2:Now what an assessment is is one third of your market value, or 33.33% of what your market value would be. What is market value? Market value is what a typical buyer would pay for your property in an arm's length transaction unencumbered by a foreclosure. Or it's your two relatives selling at each other. What would a typical buyer pay? Now there's a second step down on that, in that I am limited by the Department of Revenue of the state of Illinois, and that number is telling me that I have to assess as of the first of the year, but utilizing data from not now, but three years before the three preceding years. So assessments generally are lagged behind.
Speaker 2:So the assessor is going to place the value like you said, the value on the property, yes, lag behind.
Speaker 1:so the assessor is going to place the value like you said. Yes, next it would go to the. You submit your books to the supervisor of assessments. Is that right?
Speaker 2:the county- in december I get the book it's called and I have up until june. Actually it started out july 4th, but now it's been moved up to like june 3rd orth. Okay that I have to turn my book in, which is all the values of the township as of the first of the year.
Speaker 1:And you give that to the supervisor of assessments, the supervisor of assessments. Who is in the county is over all of kind of, over all of the townships?
Speaker 2:All the townships, the whole county yes, and then.
Speaker 1:So, from that, the supervisor of assessments. What do they do next?
Speaker 2:Well, they're going to total up the value of all of the property, all of the commercial, all of the industrial, all of the residential, and that becomes one number called the TAV or total assessed valuation. Your assessment is a percentage thereof and when you look at the other side of the tax bill, when you look at tax levy, each of those taxing bodies has a budget that they come up with or they adjust according to PTAL. And then, about three weeks before actually probably not yet right after the elections, by the way, actually probably not yet Right after the elections, by the way is when the tax bills come out May 1st, about two weeks before they take the levy and they compare it to what the total valuation is. And what number do I have to multiply the total valuation to equal the levy? That's called the tax rate.
Speaker 2:Everybody gets upset about tax rates. Tax rates are the number that makes it equal. It's not the tax rate, it's the levy from the taxing bodies that causes the pain of increased taxes. If I, as the assessor, raise everybody's assessment, let's say, as the market has occurred, 10% this last year, 10%. Everybody's value of their house is 10% higher. That will actually cause the tax rate to drop when they go to calculate it out to satisfy what the levy is.
Speaker 1:Tell us the next step. So we have the tax rate is calculated. Does it go to the treasurer's office now to issue the tax bills?
Speaker 2:Yes, the treasurer issues the tax bills, the clerk's office is the one that then doles out the money as the tax. The treasurer collects the money and then the clerk's office, through their tax, distributes those to the individual taxing bodies.
Speaker 1:Great. So, as I said, to give us a little bit of an overview of the general tax structure, talk a little bit about your office uses something called mass appraisal right For most homes.
Speaker 2:It's a CAMA system, so talk about the data.
Speaker 1:You're looking at sales, as you said from the previous three years. Yes, and that's largely for residential. And talk a little bit, you handle commercial property differently.
Speaker 2:Commercial is generally based upon an income approach, so you're looking at how much income they're pulling in. If you go to frankfurtassessorcom, you can put that up there and you're a business. I was just actually in a business recently and the guy said well, what do I do about this? Actually the Clancy's guy I'm like well, you can go to our website and you can submit a rent roll to me that'll says what you're pulling in at rent. Then I can look at what a typical investor would expect from that kind of investment and use that to figure out what the price is.
Speaker 1:It's fun Sure Talk about the process if a property owner disagrees with the values.
Speaker 2:When I first came into office in 2010,. We did not the way the appeals. So, like I get the assessments at the beginning of the year till June, I turn them in on August 1st. The supervisor of assessments sends out notices if there's been a change or, in a quadrennial, sends out notices to everybody. So once every four years you always get a notice which happened two years ago and in uh, otherwise you don't hear anything. You don't get that notice mailed If I haven't made any changes. Well, when you receive that change in August, that a 30-day window for you to file an appeal. If you disagree with what I say, you can go to the Supervisor of Assessments website. You file an appeal.
Speaker 2:Now, in 2010, when I was elected, I got a lot of appeals where people really didn't get what they were supposed to do. They would just turn in things that didn't make sense. Sometimes, even when they had a case, they wouldn't submit the information that they did and I found that odd that I wouldn't be speaking to somebody in the first six months that I was here. Why not sit down with you and I started what I call a soft appeal. You can go to the website. I think our soft appeal opens up later this month, you would be able to provide me any information you want, and either you can just give it to me or send it in or email, or you can come in.
Speaker 2:And since 2010, I've met with 2,700 people face-to-face, hour-long meetings talking about taxes and what causes them. The face-to-face meeting is great because I can pull up all of the data that I've got in my Canvas system and I can show people where they're assessed, where they're assessed in relation to their neighbors. When they tell me, oh, my neighbor's paying this, and I can just pull up the thing Well, no, he's not. This is what he's paying right here. Or sometimes, if he is, we could say, well, why is that? And it's all about creating the fair burden, because the disconnect always comes when people say, well, you're just trying to protect money from the government. No, if I lower you, that doesn't mean that you know that the fire department gets a dollar less. It means that all of your neighbors make up for a higher tax rate.
Speaker 1:One of the I think, best analogies I ever heard to get that idea is there's the whole pie and all those government taxing bodies are going to get their whole pie and that tax rate just changes to determine how much of your pie, how much pie you're contributing compared to the rest. So yeah, if somebody changes, the pie is the same. It's just shifting the responsibility.
Speaker 2:And that goes both ways. Like, if you know, we're in a time where properties are selling incredibly high. When 2007 hit and property values started to drop, your tax bill didn't go down, the tax rate just shoots up and that's absolutely horrible for a large segment of our population that are on the senior freeze. I mean, I was here in 12, 13, and 14 when I'm cutting everybody's value by 5% to 7% a year, and all that did is they enjoyed the benefit of that at least decrease, even though the tax bills went up. But what it really slammed and hurt were seniors that were on the free. So, like a senior let's say they're 65 years and at the time it was $50,000 a year they're assessed at a much lower level. So when the overall value drops and that tax rate jumped through the roof, I had seniors who literally stated that they make less than $50,000 a year and their tax bill went up $2,400.
Speaker 1:Well, and that's a big misconception too is people think the senior freeze is freezing your tax bill? No, but it's not. It's freezing your assessment.
Speaker 2:Freezing your assessment, yes not it's freezing your assessment, yes, and it it it when it's very beneficial as property values increase. But it is exceedingly painful when the market turns, and I can't I mean the market today, I don't, I can't explain it. I mean I understand people have mortgages that are low and they don't want to sell. But some of the amount I mean we were doing every neighborhood had its highest house sale. I mean Grassmere house sells for $625,000. What I mean it didn't. There's 325, you know five years ago, what, what preceded that, but then two years, you know, a year later, you got 425 or 450. So I mean it's all over the board and so let's talk.
Speaker 1:we're talking about the appeal process, so correct me if I'm off in a step of this, but, as you said, soft appeals is the first step.
Speaker 2:I would advise everybody to do a soft appeal. Okay, it's, uh, it, I mean everybody that wants to do an appeal. First off, frankfurtassessorcom, um, I think, is one of the best websites that of any assessor. You get so much information about your house, exactly. You need to pull that up. The first thing you want to look at is the sketch that's on there, the photograph of the house, which they're old but I don't want to like I'm not paying for new photographs and make sure that that's correct.
Speaker 2:Look at it, you know, say, oh, that's that looks relatively. You know the way that it should be. If you have an area that's open to above like, let's say, there's a two-story dwelling and you've got a large living room that doesn't show it on there, that would be something to talk to us about Then get as much information as you can find. If you go to the search feature, you can just put the name in of your street and it'll pull up every house on your street and you can go through and look at what they're assessed at, and it'll pull up every house on your street and you can go through and look at what they're assessed at. Now, I don't it's hard to compare tax bills. But you can go to the treasurer's office too and pull up their actual tax bill. But some people have exemptions, some people have this Well again.
Speaker 1:Yeah, assessments are the way to go.
Speaker 2:And what we're mainly looking at is a price per square foot. So if you look at what your assessment is and you divide the number of square feet, it'll give you a price per square foot and you want that to be commensurate with your neighbors that have the same house. It's my goal to say that. You know if I'm valuing that three-step ranch that's 2,400 square feet.
Speaker 2:Looks like that three-step ranch because, barring Butternut or Prestwick, most of the places that are built here are built by one or two builders in a subdivision. They build every house out pretty much the same as the whole neighborhood and they should all be assessed. And that's one of the good things about changing canvas systems at this late date is my predecessor was very big at really small neighborhoods so, like you know, defining this area as a neighborhood and people weren't allowed to look at sales elsewhere, but I wasn't allowed to look at sales elsewhere. Now I can expand neighborhoods not just by name but by house type and what the same type of house is, so that I get a bigger pool of data for sales.
Speaker 1:So if again soft appeals, the next process would be a formal appeal with your office.
Speaker 2:Well, formal appeal, that would be the board review.
Speaker 1:Board review. Okay, yeah, you'd with the supervisor the board review.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, that would be. You'd have to file through them. I would suggest going through me first. It would avoid a lot of hassle and trouble and you would understand a lot more. And then the last avenue after that is either the property tax appeal board or a circuit court, if you lose at the board of review you go to, you can file a PTAB and then circuit court, but that never really happens. Ptab is a state. We go to Springfield and go stand in front of lawyers.
Speaker 1:More of an administrative hearing process. What should somebody that's considering buying or selling their home consider as far as property taxes go? Look?
Speaker 2:at the general neighborhood. You could go to our website. You could put in the street name that you're moving on. You could get a listing of PIN numbers in your area. You could look on the treasurer's website. I've actually reached out to the treasurer, tried to link those things up, but that just doesn't seem like it's going to happen.
Speaker 2:And look at what tax. One of the big problems or one of the situations that I run into is people come in and they say well, my real estate person said it was going to be this. Your real estate person is trying to sell you a house. I mean so I mean house. It would be best, if you're buying a house, to at least investigate what tax bills are, what they have been and what in the future. Have we passed a referendum that says we're going to add 10%? You'd want to know that, and if you call my office, we'll look at it. You'd want to know that? Yeah, so, and if you call my office, we do the same. We'll, we'll look at it. Give you at least a ballpark estimate of what it was, or we'll tell you what it was and a ballpark to what it will be.
Speaker 1:So talk a little bit. You mentioned it, but the, the taxing bodies, are what determine the overall tax amount. So how should we look at that? Or how do we view that the schools are a large portion villages and that so on?
Speaker 2:Governmental bodies are services. We pay for services. We pay for a police department that does our laws, a fire department that puts out our fires, a school that educates our children, a park district that runs our laws, a fire department that puts out our fires, a school that educates our children, a park district that runs our parks. We elect in April elections coming up the individuals that decide the budgets, the way that things, you know, the way the money is spent. Every year, a taxing body is posed a question, generally around October, november, december, at their budgetary hearings and they say we can lower the levy, we can keep it the same or we can raise it.
Speaker 2:Now, historically, in 1991, they passed a law called PETA, property Tax Extension Limitation Law, and a problem occurred that property taxes were jumping 15, 20% a year as the new school board comes in and says we've got to build this school, or the park district says we've got to build this park, and they said we're going to have to figure out a way to limit this. So instead of them having an open checkbook to raise the value whatever they could, they wanted to tie it to a defined inflation point. It's called the Consumer Price Index. That means that every year that your park district or your fire department went in to do the budgetary. They could lower their budget to keep it the same or they could raise it, limited by PITO. Whoever that guy that wrote PITO was actually put a limiter. It's either the inflation rate or 5%, which is ever lower, and thank God.
Speaker 1:I mean, you know it just Because otherwise they have to go and ask for it to the voters If they want more money, they have to file a referendum.
Speaker 2:And that's why, whenever you see the word referendum, generally it works with an increase to your levy, your budget, and that's where you get the breakdown between, say, 159 and 161. They have had seven referendums and we've had four. We only passed one, they passed all seven. Now what does that mean? That means that the same house on Everett, where Mr Benny's is that street, the exact same valued house on either side of the street, their tax bill on the east side of the street is a thousand dollars higher. Wow, and that's just.
Speaker 1:And that's I mean, it's a yeah, I mean, that's a really good highlight of you know the same value, yeah, so again, it's extremely determined by where you are.
Speaker 2:You know that's right across the street how many of the service providers that you have and what they're charging you to give you. That service Taxing bodies operate in the same way that your IRA is such a great benefit for you to save money. The reason that an IRA is a great benefit is it's compounding interest. So every year you compound on not only the principal but the interest. Governmental budgets are the exact same way. You take last year's budget and you increase it by a percentage. It just keeps getting bigger and then the percentages get bigger.
Speaker 1:Even that 1% increase from 15 years ago is now about a 7% increase just because of the way that you pass the referendum and it doesn't stop and that is one of the key reasons, you know, I wanted to do this, and with us as well as the whole thing, is those people that were voting on those school boards, and you know all the things that we make up our tax bill, and so it is important to know who those people are, because that has a significant direct impact on each of us as residents, just comment First off.
Speaker 2:There's the other way, which is absolutely just as bad, of coming in and cutting everything. The reason people move here is because of our school system. You need to fund them Now. You know, electing people to park district boards and school boards and fire protection boards that think about the tax ramifications is probably an important thing too. And, you know, can you get the best for the dollar as opposed to just spending more, and it doesn't. More money doesn't automatically mean better service. It just means that you're paying more money and in some cases, you know, the outcome is less when you're paying more.
Speaker 1:I want to do a little. We've covered a lot of these, but do a little quick like vocab of some of the terminology we've gone over. So first assessed value.
Speaker 2:One third of market value, market value being what somebody would pay for in an arm's length transaction.
Speaker 1:Okay, next one is market value. So we got that one taken care of. What is the equalization factor?
Speaker 2:The Board of Revenue, department of Revenue, has a valuation. They look at every single sale and compare it to where I am. They look at every single sale and compare it to where I am, and that gives them an idea of where I am in relation to value. And so they will say, joe, you're, you know, 6% low and you could make changes, and I go make changes. And then they will apply 6% to everybody to bring the value up to that level. And it's actually, if you have a fairly assessed system, the equalization factor all that does, and it doesn't change the tax bills, it just changes value up and down.
Speaker 1:Talk about what is the quadrennial reassessment.
Speaker 2:So every four years I'm required to look at property throughout the township, every property, to make sure that we have particulars. The quadrennial is the year that you get sent out all of the notices that say what your value is and what changes it actually occurs every year. We make adjustments every year. The quadrennial is just the year that statutorily they have to send out letters.
Speaker 1:And then again just explain what the levy is.
Speaker 2:The levy is the taxing bodies, the services that you are receiving from taxing bodies. It's their bill to say this is what we want you to pay. Okay, it's about assessments and I was going to say anything to the people out there. If you wanted to talk about assessments or look at your assessment, set up a soft appeal, Bring in as much information or as little information as you want. I generally book the appointments for about an hour and we go through and we talk about your house, your neighbor's houses, anybody's house. You want to bring up what they're paying.
Speaker 1:And if you provide us, we'll put the website on. And if the soft appeal dates, if you want to give us that, I'll make sure to share that as well, so people can reach out to your office, but I think it's the 20th.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, whenever that comes out. If it's, uh, even after the video, we'll be sure to share those dates for people so they can come out and talk to you. All right, so I just want to end with kind of a quick round of some lighter questions for you. I'll let you off the hook on the easier way out. Um, so the theme of our podcast is history and community.
Speaker 2:If you were talking to a new resident, new person coming into town, what advice would you offer them to get involved and feel connected within our community? Join a group, you know, I mean whether it's the Cub Scouts, or maybe you have kids with Cub Scouts. I'm actually trying. There's the Toastmasters in Frankfurt that.
Speaker 1:I think I might want to get involved with.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're great, but I mean to learn to speak better. Like you, get involved, show up to events, show up to board meetings, and I mean just listen to what goes on, ask questions, be nice, be you know, and you would, you'll, you'll get a feeling of the way that the community operates. And it's all about community. It's all about your neighbors. Whether they're Republican or Democrat or anything else, it doesn't matter. It's being present in your community and supporting the people around you.
Speaker 1:Speaking of meetings, when does the township have their board meeting? The?
Speaker 2:second Monday of the month, nobody shows up to township meetings.
Speaker 1:Well, that's why we'll put it out there and if anybody wants to come check it out.
Speaker 2:As you saw in the previous one, that food pantry. Mike Hilton was a guy that was working for the and he worked for, I believe, juul and when he came to work for the food pantry he set up all these absolutely incredible.
Speaker 2:You know, stop by Juul or Burkard's and pick up, you know, meat and produce and that thing has grown and grown and grown and I think it's like the best food pantry in the Southland and people talk about it and it actually say, I mean, you know like well, I'll sit and have conversations with seniors that come in that like I can't afford to live here anymore, joe, and I'll be like listen, I know it's not what you want to do, and they get really, you know this is not the charity I want, but let's go down to the food pantry and I take them down there and introduce them to Steve and say, hey, this person, can you imagine what it'd be if you didn't have to pay for two bags of food a week? Yeah, you know what I mean. It's the difference between people living here and not living here.
Speaker 1:You know I learned so much by going around with Supervisor Nick George and just what the township offers. It's really insightful because it really does help a lot of the people especially that need help with the senior housing and all that.
Speaker 2:Oh, and it's the government for the areas that don't have a villager.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, what is your favorite area restaurant?
Speaker 2:I had something Saturday. It was probably one of the best things that I've eaten in a couple years and that was a crepe at that crepe place really okay, it was amazing yeah, I, it was a chicken alfredo with broccoli spinach.
Speaker 2:Wow, and this guy. We went in there. My wife had gone to Governor's State with my son to see a shadow performance, where they're doing shadow something. Whatever. America's Got Talent, they were the winners. Whatever she's like, well, we'll meet here and everybody was supposed to meet there and it was just us and the family. And I sat down and talked to this guy. He actually had an assessment question. So when I was at the office today, I picked out some papers. I dropped them off there. Great people. Anytime you open up a restaurant, it's a hard business to open up, but it was great. It was fantastic. Other than that, what's the mom and pop place here on Peppermill?
Speaker 1:Peppermill yeah, you're the second person that's given Peppermill as an answer.
Speaker 2:I love Peppermill. Peppermill's great. I mean Peppermill's the kind of place you can go and be. You know, I'm not the fancy food my kid is the fancy food. My wife likes to go out. I love a good breakfast. We went to some Greek place in Oak Brook and you spend you know $200 on food and you're stuffed. But you go to Peppermill and if you're just as stuffed then you get home in 15 minutes. Sure it's nice.
Speaker 1:If you could master one skill, what would it be Public?
Speaker 2:speaking. Huh Toastmasters. I know I literally have Sometime I think it was in November and I was like I should go there and just to sit down and just to learn, you know, some of the things that I never picked up in public speaking and I I've always, I mean, and I'm thrust in this job to speak publicly. I just do it Socratically because I don't really know any other way and I'm not going to develop speeches on this and maybe I should but to convey the information that, overall, the assessments are percentage of the total valuation and it's the levy that's cut.
Speaker 1:Yeah, If you could only watch one TV show for the rest of your life, what would it be? I love Parks and Recreation. That's a good one.
Speaker 2:Especially from a government perspective. In fact, I was just watching it with my child.
Speaker 1:That's a good one, it's from a government standpoint, especially from a government perspective.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I watched, in fact I was just watching it with, you know, my child. We were having some discussions and he's like you're Ron Swanson, and I'm like, well, you know, I do follow a lot of what he says, you know, but I mean I always loved the Office, but I, because I worked for Cook County for a long time.
Speaker 1:And when at the? But I worked for Cook County for a long time and the Board of Review Did you really? Yeah, and watching Parks and Rec after having that experience was like this is amazing. So you worked for the Board of Review, yeah, yeah, yeah. So if you came with a warning label, what would it be?
Speaker 2:Don't talk to me during Bears games.
Speaker 1:That's a good one.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, we're just having the discussion with the wife and she was for a Super Bowl and she's like I don't want to talk to you around. You know games because you get so upset and I'm like the last time that this occurred was she walked downstairs just as the Bears had the hail mary thrown against them. Literally 30 seconds later she's like how's your game? I'm like it sucks you're very upset. She's like I don't want to talk to you when you're.
Speaker 1:I'm like I was so upset, but I mean you know the start of the downfall sure, if somebody came to mokina for the first time to visit, where would you take them Front?
Speaker 2:Street. I think, as far as a community goes and this is, I don't, you know, the whole mayoral race, and I'm not talking about any of that that is such an underutilized strip of land that I think that if I brought somebody in, I would be like, hey, you know what would go good here, what would be the business on this street. I mean, you have a captive audience getting off the train every day and getting on the train every day, and you could, you know? I mean that's why Annie's Casino, when it didn't, when it failed, I mean I just I couldn't figure that out, because I mean that was like the perfect get off the train, buy your meatball sandwich and go home. You know, it didn't make sense, that it didn't survive.
Speaker 1:What is your favorite Molkina community event?
Speaker 2:I really have grown to like the food trucks. I think that is a it's a great community event. I really have grown to like the food trucks. I think that is a it's a great community event. So I mean we talk about community and bringing people together and it's not about, you know, you're this or you're that. It's that we're all members of this community. That's a great place. I go there, you sit and you talk to people around, you wave, you know I mean that's a good community event. Yeah, and it's well attended and you know, melissa does a great job. It just, you know, good job.
Speaker 1:It's inspiring to see Like it really shows that people want to have something to do in downtown Mokena.
Speaker 2:Well, and I mean, and that, once again, downtown Front Street, and it just, you know, for years Dave's Auto was Tribes and I'd get my car fixed there and talk to Dave and Char, and now it was Tribes and then they didn't sell food and it was part of the TIF district and I don't think he understood what TIF district meant because he thought he was going to make a lot. No, that's just not the way a TIF district works. Because he thought he was going to make a lot. No, that's just not the way TIF district works. And you need to raise the value up. But I'm like, no, no, it has to be commensurate with the other properties around. This is prime real estate for commercial. That brings people in, that gets, and you can't beat the parking there, it's you know, slide in and out, joe, anything else that you want to share before we wrap it up.
Speaker 2:April elections are important. You're going to be able to meet your school board candidates, your mayoral candidates, your trustee candidates. Get out and meet them, just talk to them. Uh, you know they're they'll be fighting each other, but you, as a voter, need to look past that and look to who you want to support, because you trust them to do it, and then, when you do vote for them, continue to make sure that they're doing what they said they were going to do Not anything specific to the mayoral candidates, but any elected official and make sure that they're providing you the service that you are electing them to do. When it comes down to it, your fire is put out and your criminal is arrested and your law is being followed and permits not being exceedingly expensive. I wish government would be more active doing what they're supposed to do. Okay.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you very much. We'll share your website as well as the dates of the soft appeals when you share that with us, and then make sure to check out all of our candidate interviews on our website. And early voting starts on March 17th and election day is April 1st. Thanks, joe. All right, thank you.
