Southern Illinois News

Alexander County has received a final property assessment equalization factor of 0.9838, as announced by David Harris, director of the Illinois Department of Revenue. The property assessment equalization factor, commonly referred to as the "multiplier," is used to ensure uniform property assessments across counties in Illinois. This process is crucial because many local taxing districts overlap into multiple counties.

Under legislation passed in 1975, properties in Illinois should be assessed at one-third of their market value. However, farm properties have different assessment criteria; farm homesites and dwellings follow regular assessing and equalization procedures while farmland is assessed based on one-third of its agricultural economic value and does not fall under the state equalization factor.

Assessments in Alexander County currently stand at 33.88% of market value, calculated from property sales during 2021 through 2023. The newly assigned equalization factor applies to taxes for the year 2024, which are payable in 2025. For comparison, last year's factor for the county was set at 1.0000.

The final assessment equalization factor followed a public hearing regarding the tentative factor issued on April 28, 2025, which was also set at 0.9838.

This annual determination for each county compares individual property sale prices over three years with their assessed values by the county assessor. If this three-year average aligns with one-third of market value, the multiplier is one (1). If it exceeds or falls short of this benchmark, the multiplier adjusts accordingly—below one if greater than one-third and above one if less than one-third.

A change in this factor doesn't directly alter total property tax bills; these are set by local taxing bodies according to their yearly financial requirements for community services. Even with increased assessments, total taxes remain stable unless local districts request more funds than previously received.

The assessed value defines an individual's share of tax responsibility within their locality but isn't altered by changes in the multiplier.