Mia (Assessor/Assessment department staff) told the committee on Feb. 4 that Iroquois County has seen a number of township assessor vacancies and that the county’s current intergovernmental agreement (IGA) rate of $5.64 per parcel for doing assessment work for townships is likely insufficient if multiple townships ask the county to take over assessments.

Mia said the assessment office received the state multiplier that reduces the county’s equalized assessed value and that the state will reimburse roughly half of Mia’s salary under the multiplier arrangement. Board of Review tentative value-change notices were mailed last week; taxpayers unhappy with tentative decisions may appear for final review days in February, Mia said.

The office mailed renewal notices for the senior freeze, disability exemption and disabled-veteran exemptions only to those who received them the prior year to reduce mailing costs; Mia said about 1,600–1,700 renewal packets went out.

On IGAs, Mia said Beaverville and "Pappanac" (townships named in the meeting) are currently being served under the $5.64 per-parcel rate, but if many more townships without assessors request county services the office would be unable to handle the workload at that rate. Mia said she will prepare cost estimates that include hiring a full-time assessor and the true per-parcel cost and will propose requiring a year-long payment commitment from townships that enter an IGA. She noted township assessors that successfully maintain coverage currently pay substantially higher annual compensation (committee members cited examples in the $38,000–$40,000 range for multi-township positions).

Mia asked the committee to encourage townships to recruit or fund their own assessors; she said she does not want to be in the position of covering many elected township-assessor roles simultaneously.

Mia also reported she will meet with Bruce Harris for user-acceptance testing of a new GIS system and expects the new GIS and the updated 2024 inventory to be live in about 30 days; the old site will link to the new site while it is phased in. She agreed to circulate a schedule of township board meeting nights (for townships lacking assessors) to committee members so they could attend and explain the assessor role to township boards.

Other permit and inspections figures were reported by Julie (Building/Permits staff): the office collected 1,803 in permit activity (revenue context not fully specified) and performed 36 inspections in the reported period. Julie said after expenses the department did not finish the month in the red as it had the prior month.

Why it matters: The committee said vacancies among township assessors could shift workload and costs to county government and that the county must set transparent rates and contracts to avoid unmanageable workload. A functioning GIS and clearer project-accounting were seen as priorities for managing an increasing number of applications related to renewable projects and building permits.

What’s next: Mia will present calculated IGA cost proposals to the county board and the committee (aimed for distribution after the March 4 committee meeting). Staff will circulate township meeting schedules and the GIS user-acceptance timeline.