County Board - Regular Meeting

Well, welcome everybody. Good morning.

Well, I'll have to say good morning in a minute. We need the recorder.

No. Yeah, we're waiting for you to bring in the donuts, Steve.

He brought coffee for himself, but no donuts for anybody else.

All right, try again.

Good morning, everybody morning. I'd like to call the Will County Board Committee the whole meeting to order at 9.33 a.m. If we could all stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. And I would like to invite Mayor Schumacher. Would you like to lead us, please?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, Mayor. Can we have a roll call please?

Okay. Okay. Here we go. Richmond Williams. Dean Schlappman. Dean Schlappman. Pretzel. Pretzel Butler. Butler Newquist. Axley Brooks. Winfrey Bullock Logan Logan Freeman Revis Revis Mitchell Mitchell Ortiz Berkowitz Hickey Costa Costa Trenier Trainier? Van Dyne?

Present.

We have a quorum.

We do have a quorum, thank you. Looking for a motion to approve the minutes 26-5160, Committee to Hold a Strategic Plan Workshop in July 13th. Motion Williams? Second by Winfrey. Any discussion on the minutes? Roll call, please.

Richmond? Williams? Yes. Oh, gala. Yes. New quest. Yes. Alex. Brooks.

Yeah.

When free. Freeman. Berkowitz. Vandyne yes.

Motion passes, thank you looking for a motion to approve 26 dash 5230 committee. The whole minutes with the will county land bank July 14th. Motion Freeman, seconded by Hickey. Previous by Winfrey, seconded by Oxley. All those in favor please say aye aye anyone opposed. That motion will carry now I'd like to invite the public comments section of the agenda. Is there anyone from the public wishing to speak this morning? Seeing none, probably because they didn't have their donuts and coffee this morning, Steve. All right, moving on. We do not have any old business, so we'll move right into new business. 26-5258, discussion, tax sale legislation, Public Act 104-0553, House Bill 4537. I need a motion to put that on the floor. Motion by ballot, 2nd, and by Hickey, um, at this time, I'd like to invite Mr Scott piles, um, are with the state's attorney's office to start off the discussion. Good morning. Mr piles.

Speaker, thank you very much for having me here today. Um, so. The last couple of years have been a very interesting. Change of events with regard to how property taxes are handled, how they are collected and what happens once a property goes to a tax sale. So, the United States Supreme Court in 2023, put forth a case that. Kind of changes in a significant way how properties are handled once they go to a tax sale. The Illinois legislature has followed up that Tyler decision with sweeping property tax reform legislation that was just signed in July. Uh, I have been working with the treasurer's office and members of the clerk's office regarding some of these changes. Uh, and I want to talk to you today about what the county board and what the county is going to have to do. And in my eyes to help alleviate, which could be a, a, a pretty significant problem. So, 1st off, The county, the school districts, the fire protection districts are essentially funded in large part by property taxes. Those are taxes that are paid based on the assessed values done by the supervisor of assessments. And it is sent out in the form of a property tax bill that is payable typically in 2 payments. That money is then collected and that is distributed by the treasurer's office to all the different taxing bodies, including the county, which is a taxing body, the school districts, fire protection districts. And so forth, so these property taxes are then collected and they are distributed and this is the money that our municipalities, our school districts use to fund. Uh, their operations and their obligations to the public. And property taxes are very important part of that puzzle. The property tax collection system is governed by the Illinois property tax code. Some of the things that I'm going to talk about today, and some of the problems that have risen are directly as a result of how the legislature has set up the property tax collection system. So prior to the changes in property taxes to 104-0553, property taxes were collected in kind of the following form. So the property taxes are collected by the county treasurer. Those taxes, those property taxes are paid by the property owners. Now, some of the properties that we're going to be talking about today are generally not going to be impacted. Those with a mortgage, the banks typically, as part of an escrow account that the mortgage holder, property owner has, it's the bank that pays the property's taxes. So most people that have mortgages and own homes are not paying these property taxes directly. These are being paid by their mortgage company. So they don't see or realize the impact of sometimes the property taxes. They get the bill. The mortgage company is going to take care of it. Usually there's an adjustment in your escrow account if the property taxes go up. And that's really how you get the impact of that because your mortgage payment goes up a little bit to account for the increase in the taxes or the amounts required in the escrow account. Now, There are situations where people do not pay their property taxes. Now, where we typically see that is people that own their own home. They don't have a mortgage or they bought it with some other aid and they physically go to the proper to the treasurer's office to pay the property tax bill. However, each year there are. I would say there is not a significant portion, but there's quite a few number of people that do not pay their property taxes. municipalities, the school districts, the county, we have to have the money that we're expecting in order to pay our employees, to take care of our obligations that we have to the public, the municipalities, the school district gotta pay teachers. So the property tax code provides a system that allows money to get into, to cover the people that don't pay their property taxes. And that's a device called the annual sale. So as many of you know, I was in private practice. I knew nothing about how this worked until I started working with the state's attorney's office. So each year, it's been my job to go into court around Thanksgiving and ask the court for permission to allow the treasurer to put up all of the properties that have unpaid taxes to allow them to go to the annual tax sale. And how this works, once the judge signs off, we have to print a very large newspaper notice of all the properties that didn't pay their taxes and that we are going to put these properties in the tax sale. It is a laborious process that we do every year because we've got to get the individual notices from each of the newspapers to show that we, in fact, notified through publication that we were doing this. So the court signs off on this process. Five days later, the treasurer then holds a tax sale. Private tax buyers come into the private tax cell and they purchase tax certificates. These certificates give the tax buyers two outlets. The first outlet is if the property owner didn't pay their taxes, they come in and redeem. And they have, under the old law, they had 30 months to pay and redeem their taxes. And then they would keep their property. Well, what happened then is the tax buyer would receive that money and the money that they paid for the tax fund or the tax certificate would be refunded to them. The benefit to the taxing bodies is that when the tax sale revenues come in, that gets distributed to all the taxing bodies to help fund their operations. That makes up for the fact that some people didn't pay their property taxes. So. That process, the treasurer holds the annual sale. The tax certificates are sold to the private tax buyers. Now, those properties that do not get a bid or do not have their tax certificates purchased. Those go to our will county trustee, and we have representatives from Joseph Meyer here. They have Neil Wallace, the general counsel and Whitney straw. I are the. The agent that are here, because they're going to play an important part of the role. In 1 of the recommendations that we have for you today. So, after and the properties that go to the trustee are typically what we see retention ponds and condos. They're usually a pin where there's a retention pond. Nobody really cares about it. The taxes don't get paid. Those go to a tax sale. Somebody unwittingly may buy it, you know, realizing it's essentially a worthless piece of property and then it goes on from there. But the private tax buyers. by the bulk of them. And then the properties that are not as much value, those end up going to the trustee and he administer them in a very similar way to the taxpayer. And we'll talk about that a little bit later. So if the property owner redeems their taxes, the taxpayer gets a refund. However, if the property owner does not redeem the tax certificate within the 30 months, The tax certificate is essentially a ticket to allow the taxpayer to go to court and to petition the court to give them a tax deed for that property. That's how the property tax code is set up. It was an incentive back then to. Bring the taxpayers to the table to essentially give us money to fund all the governmental operations. And then if the property owner never redeemed. At the end of the day, the tax buyer could get. Title to possibly a valuable property. Now, in Illinois, we have what's called the indemnity fund and I don't know if I've ever talked about any of those. The indemnity fund is also set up in the property tax code is kind of a relief valve. For property owners that lose their homes in a tax sale. And the property tax code is set up to allow. These distressed homeowners that lose their property to come in and file a claim with the treasurer. And say, we lost our home, we want to make a claim on the identity fund. The identity fund is. In essence, funded by fees paid by the tax buyers when they participate in the tax process. So, it's kind of to a certain extent is self funding, but. In some ways, it's not because if there is an overwhelming number of claims, if the fund gets can get depleted relatively quickly here in will county, we've been able to stay ahead of the curve. Uh, on some of the identity claims, because as part of my job at the state's attorney's office, I handle the identity claims. And as part of that, I talk with some of the people. Uh, that have lost their homes, it's generally a situation where. They usually own the home free and clear. Uh, and sometimes it's a quite valuable, we might be talking about a 3 or 400,000 dollar home that these people lost. Because they couldn't pay a 20 or 30,000 dollar tax bill. That's quite a hit. So. Generally, what I see when we do these identity cases, typically they own a home and then something be falls that they have a worker's comp where they can't work or they lose their job. They fall behind. And the property tax bill typically falls at the bottom of the list. Of bills to be paid, but eventually. As the process goes forward, the amount to redeem grows. Because property taxes become due the next year. There are penalties and there is also interest awarded to the tax buyers during in the bidding process.

Oh, my, uh, thank you very much.

So we're still. Is my voice not caring? I generally don't have a problem with my voice, but I guess it's being recorded. So, the difficulty here is that. the people that lose their homes in this tax sale process are generally not on the right side of things as it is, and then they lose their home on top of it. So when the tax buyer takes... Indeed, they get the property and they get the full property and then they can go and sell it. They can keep it and rent it out, whatever. But they get the benefit of the property when the property owner does not redeem and the time is expired. So the county does not get any surplus from any of these properties. That money goes directly to the tax buyer. So, and in 2023, the case of Tyler versus Hennepin County, Minnesota is decided and this kind of really sent a shockwave through the system. So what happened in Tyler, Geraldine Tyler was a 94-year-old pensioner who had a $40,000 condominium and she did not pay her $15,000 in taxes. And she lost her home, her condo. So she sued saying it was an unlawful taking. So under the Fifth Amendment of the Constitution, there is a clause in the Fifth Amendment that says that we cannot take private property without paying just compensation. So Ms. Tyler said, you know, Hennepin County took my property. I owed $15,000 in taxes, but I ended up paying 40. I lost my condo and I lost all the equity. So the United States Supreme Court heard the arguments in this case and they held that the seizing of Ms. Tyler's condo for the entire $40,000 was an unlawful taking. and that the $25,000 that she lost that she did not owe in taxes but went to the county was a unconstitutional taking under the Fifth Amendment. Hennepin County was liable to that homeowner for the lost $25,000. So this decision comes down, and here we are in Illinois. We're not even taking the surplus, but we are taking the properties for these unpaid taxes. If you think about it, we've got kind of the worst of both. Not only are we doing the taking, but we're not even getting the money. The money is going to the private tax buyers. They're collecting the surplus and the properties. We're not even taking that. We're just getting the taxes. In the Tyler case, Minnesota was at least getting a surplus. We're not even under the Illinois property tax code as it existed. We weren't even getting a surplus. So after the Tyler case, some of the same lawyers that were involved in the Tyler case filed suit here in Illinois in a case called Sherrod versus Henry.

And that's

Up on the board there, so, and share it. That is a class action lawsuit naming all people in Illinois that have lost their home in a tax sale and did not receive payment for the equity. So far that case is kind of in the pleading stage. Um, some of you may be asking well. And Will County is a party in that case, and we have outside counsel along with myself involved in representing the county in that. We've raised some arguments in the federal court cases. Well, wait a minute. Illinois is not like Minnesota. We don't keep the surplus. The private tax buyers do. The court said, does it matter? The county is the one doing the taking. We're taking the property. We're committing the... the Fifth Amendment violation. So what we've done and we've tried to do is we've tried to third party in which essentially bring into the case the private tax buyers to say, hey, okay, if we owe this money, they're holding it. They took the money. So far, the court, federal courts have said, no, We're not going to allow these third party actions because number one, there are no contribution claims. And when I say contribution claims, there's no requirement that a private party aid in paying for a constitutional violation that's being committed by a defendant. That is that ruins the deterrent effect of a section 1983 action. Section 1983 is a civil rights violation. We've been in here and talked about those in executive session. These are cases for violation of civil rights. So because these takings are considered to be 1983 actions, we haven't had a lot of success in the Sherrod versus Henry case of bringing in the private tax buyers to help aid in this liability that the Tyler versus Hennepin case has put upon us. There was also another case that's pending in federal court involving Cook County. That's Kidd v. Pappas. And in that particular case, the federal judge has said that the Cook County treasurer is violating the Fifth and Eighth Amendment rights of the property tax distressed homeowners by taking their property. So essentially, Cook County is going to be on the hook for all the properties they've taken And not supply the surplus now, there hasn't been a damages assessment yet in that case. But these are some of the federal court cases that are pending regarding Tyler that are. Active here in Illinois, so as a result of. Tyler, the Illinois legislature passed sweeping property tax reform that now protects the surplus of the homeowners that lose their property in a tax sale. And they've kind of changed how the property tax system sale process works. And it's going to require action by this board and some of the county officials to help implement it. And that's part of why I'm here to talk about this today. And I understand this is, I mean, I'm probably talking a little bit above. Uh, but, uh, and I'm here to answer any questions that people have afterwards and that's why we have the treasurer and the county tax agent here to answer any questions you may have. based on some of the recommendations I'm going to make at the end of the presentation. So the legislation that was passed changes the way the property is transferred. Instead of a direct title transfer to the tax buyer at the end of the redemption period, now a tax buyer or the trustee now have to now apply to the court for permission to hold an auction. So instead of the taxpayer just getting the property, now they have to go to court and they say, well, we want to place this property up for auction and allow bidders to come in and buy it. Now, this will help in a couple of ways. Number one, it'll help assess what the true value of the property is in order to determine what the equity loss is. And number two, after this auction is held, the statute requires that any surplus of After the payment of the taxes and the penalties and the interest, the surplus from that sale must be deposited with the treasurer to allow the former homeowner to make a claim for it. So now, instead of them losing their home, now they're going to get the money, the surplus, after the auction. And this is a publicly noticed auction. People can show up, banks, private individuals, other tax buyers can come, and they can bid on this property, and the highest bidder gets it. Now, there's a minimum bid set for these auctions. The minimum bid covers any taxes and interests that are currently pending, and the surplus... would rise as people go higher and higher in the bidding, then that would create the surplus that would be deposited with the treasurer. Now, some of you may be thinking, well, then where do the tax buyers? Tax buyers can still... theoretically makes some money on the interest and some of the penalties that are assessed by making the late payments. Because interest goes up every month that the property taxes are not paid, and that interest goes to, in some instances, the tax buyer, correct?

Yes.

So... The legislation now protects the homeowner surplus. In addition to that, it also allows, and part of this was already in the legislation, it now allows a county, if they decide to, to become the, owners of all of the depressed or distressed properties in will county and when i say the owner essentially all the property instead of just the bad ones would now go would go to the will county trustee they would become the tax buyer And then they would wait for the redemption period, which is now three years under the new legislation. They would wait for the redemption period to go. They'd be the technical tax buyer. And at the end of that three-year time period, then the trustee would put the properties up for auction. And once the amounts were determined and there was a surplus, then that surplus would be deposited by the trustee with the treasurer for the former homeowner to claim the property. So, the winning bid at these auctions covers. The taxes that are all the penalties in the end interest, and then the money above that a minimum amount would then be the surplus that would be deposited with the treasurer. The legislation also sets up what's called a surplus equity fund. And what this fund does is this is to cover properties that weren't covered by the new legislation. And we're talking about properties that have already went to tax deed and outstanding tax sale certificates that are out there. So people that have private tax buyers are holding certificates and they do not redeem, they could make a claim under this surplus equity fund. and the surplus equity fund is funded in part by fees paid by the tax buyers when they participate throughout the the taxing process there's a 500 fee if they take a deed every time they make a payment there's another charge the legislation also allows the treasurer if you so approve a 20 fee every time there are certain payments made uh to the the clerk or the treasurer's office with regard to these properties And then this money is going to help accumulate funds so that we can pay claims under the fact that there's some people out there that have lost their home, the title, and they can make a claim against the county for their loss of their equity. Now, here's the kicker. So in this bill, there is paragraph E that's part of section 21-302, payments of the surplus equity fund. If the surplus equity fund does not have sufficient funds to cover any surplus equity award ordered pursuant to 21-302, which is essentially the person making a claim with the court saying, I lost my equity. I want to make a claim against the treasurer in the county for the loss of my equity in this home. And the court says, yes, bang, here's the award. And then they make a claim against the surplus equity fund. If the surplus equity award ordered pursuant to section 21-32, the county shall fund the balance necessary to satisfy the unpaid surplus equity award pursuant to section 21-32 within 12 months of the date of the court order awarding the surplus.

So the legislation has now put it on us.

If the surplus equity fund does not have enough money to pay off an equity award, it is up to us to fund this money. Now, Moni, probably you're sitting out there, well, wait a minute, this is really kind of unfair. We didn't even get the surplus in the first place. I get that. This is a mess. So at the bottom of this slide, now we're going to look at the kicker. So currently, according to the treasurer's office, we have 75 to 80 tax deeds that have already gone out. Which means 75 to 80 people have potentially lost some equity in their home. On top of that, we have 2,000 outstanding tax certificates out right now, which means this is 2,000 opportunities for us to have to pay a loss of equity. Now, the good news is the great majority of these are going to be redeemed. Most people that are in this situation come up with the money, and some of you might be thinking, well, wait a minute, why can't they just go out and get a home equity loan, come and pay the taxes? You know, that's a question I ask in a lot of these indemnity cases. Why don't you go to the bank and get the money? You have a quarter of a million dollars in equity in your house. Go get a loan. You know, the answers to those questions are not... not really prevailing, but either they're not working or they don't think that they can get a loan or they're confused by the process. A lot of them do not go to the bank and get the money to redeem the property. But out of that 2,000, we would estimate that probably 90% or about 1,800 would probably redeem, leaving maybe 100% That are out there that may, uh, do that and we're going to talk about that because we have a solution to that problem and we're going to, I'm going to talk about that in a 2nd. So, part of this new legislation is provisions that talk about the, uh, the county. Tax agent, or the trustee, uh, replacing the private tax buyer. Now, there's some advantages to this. Number one being the private tax buyer is kind of works for us. They're going to make sure that the homeowner's equity is protected. They're going to make sure that the auctions are competitive and vigorous so we can get as much money for these properties as we can in an auction. And we know that because Joseph E. Meyer has been doing this for us for years. They get money and they're in their packet. There's some statistics in there on what they've done. They have a pretty good closure rate of getting money for some of the properties that other tax buyers don't want. So they have a pretty good track record. Number two, county tax agent plays, they get a lower interest than what a private tax buyer may bid out for. So the importance of that is that it costs less money for the distressed homeowner to redeem the property if the county trustee has it as opposed to the private tax buyer. Private tax buyer, and they were an important part of the process before Tyler because they were essentially giving loaning money to the county and they were getting interest on that because they were paying the unpaid taxes. With the advent of Tyler, unfortunately, that process is no longer workable. Because every time a tax deed goes to a private tax buyer, it becomes a liability for the county. Because we're the ones that have got to make up for the lost equity, not the private tax buyer. So this is the statutory section to talk about that. There's a downside, however, to the tax buyer being the county trustee. County trustee does not pay any funds for these properties. No cash changes hands. So there will be no annual tax sale for the taxing bodies to get some additional distribution based on the unpaid taxes. So there's going to be a little bit of pain initially from the taxing to the taxing bodies because they are not going to get that sliver of money that would typically be provided by the private tax buyers when they purchase tax certificates. Now, and then the county shares in that pain, too, because we don't get the distributions from that as well. But the school districts and some of the other places that are relying on this money, there's going to be a little bit of an impact in there. But the fact of the matter is that every time a private tax buyer takes a deed, that becomes a liability for the county and the county alone. So... We have to keep that in mind when we're talking about this. So everybody's going to, there's going to be some pain shared all around by this as a result of this United States Supreme Court decision. So I've already talked about some of the advantages of having the county trustee. And by the way, you would make the decision to do this. You would have to pass a resolution that would take all of the distressed properties out of the tax sale and essentially make the Will County be the buyer of these properties during the redemption period. And then the trustee would administer those properties similarly to what the private tax buyer would do. There's going to be more, we believe there'll be some cost savings because there are lower interest rates that would be there. Also, there would be an elimination of a lot of the sale and errors when a private tax buyer purchases a tax certificate, they can somewhere down the road, make a claim with the court. Oh, I bought this tax certificate in error. There was an error made in the paperwork. I did not realize there was a lien on this property. And that gives them grounds to get a sale and error. And a lot of times that sale and error comes with interest. So not only are we refunding their money that they bought the tax certificate, we are paying them sometimes a real high rate of interest on that money. And a lot of that would be eliminated with the county tax agent. Another advantage for the distressed homeowner is that the county trustee and the treasurer could take partial payments when the trustee which they can't do with a private tax buyer. Private tax buyer, you've got to pay the whole thing up front. There's no payment plans. That's it. Trustee is empowered under the act to take partial payments and work with the distressed homeowners. The downside of having, again, the county as the trustee and the tax agent handling this is that there is no private tax buyer revenue coming in from the tax sale. As I discussed earlier, that's the downside. That's a disadvantage to doing this and I'm being upfront. With what what the trade off is.

So.

We, at the state's attorney's office have the following recommendations for to for the board to consider. And the 1st, 1 is, we want you to pass a resolution that essentially makes the county trustee. the county, the owner of these distressed properties going forward. We think it's better, at least initially, to do it this way until we can get a process in place. We know how the auctions are going to be held because Joseph E. Meyer and Associates have been doing these auctions for decades. They know how to do it. Well, they are already protecting homeowner equity at a case last week. Uh, the, uh, county tax agents already, uh, even though it was purchased before the act, they're already protecting the equity of these homeowners. So, um, we, we think that this is a better approach to go. Is there going to be a little bit of short term pain as it works through? Yes, because there's not going to be any revenue coming in from the private tax buyers. But the fact of the matter is the costs are going to be lower. It's going to help the distressed homeowner and we're going to make sure that the, uh, that the surplus from these properties is maximized and we have control with that. Whereas with the private tax buyer, we don't if the private tax buyer do it, they have to also auction the property. But then the sheriff is doing the auctioning and then increase our costs. Second recommendation is to pass a resolution authorizing the treasurer to collect a $20 fee that's been put into the act to help raise money for the surplus equity fund. And I believe there's going to be a resolution for that in August, which is important because there's going to be a bunch of payments made in September that we'd like to collect that fee on so we can start building up this fund. So that'll be for your consideration, hopefully be for your consideration this month. And we're recommending that you authorize the treasurer to collect that $20 fee that's been authorized by the act. And again, that money, which is... Money paid by the private tax buyers, that's going to go into the surplus equity fund, and that's going to go to help pay some of these back equity claims that we may owe. The third recommendation is that we're going to start a process trying to get the old outstanding tax certificates out of the old system and get them into the new system where everything's got to be auctioned. So right now, these 2,000 tax certificates are under the old system where they could potentially go in, get a tax deed, no auction, take the property, and then we get the bill. So working in conjunction with the treasurer's office, we're going to start a process where we're going to start trying to bring those back in and get those under the new system. And we have a plan in place for that. It's going to take some work from the treasurer and from the state's attorney's office to bring that off, but we're dedicated to trying to protect the taxpayers and the county as best we can. And we feel that this is getting these old, these 2,000 certificates out and into the new system where they got to be auctioned, I think is important in the long run. The last recommendation is that I think that the board is going to have to start making preparations to fund this equity fund. As the statute says, let me, I'll answer any question anybody has. We, We need to start putting money into the equity fund. I believe if we do this in stages and we're preparing for this, and I can tell you from what I heard from the treasurer's office, from the treasurer's convention, we're on the cutting edge here. So we're ahead of the game in Will County. And I think if we phase this in and we budget this properly, I don't think there's gonna be a big impact where I think some counties are gonna take a serious hit I can tell you I've handled and settled four or five indemnity cases, and all of them went for $99,000 plus. And that's because under the statute, we have to pay $99,000 whether or not the homeowner was at fault losing the house or not. That's what the statute says. So we pay that. Uh, in the indemnity cases that we've been handling lately, we've been getting waivers of a title or liability put right into the order. So, anybody that's taken an indemnity award that forecloses there. Any potential filing a case or having any getting any money based on the Tyler case or the surplus equity fund. So we've been protecting it that way. Treasurer's office has also been notifying tax buyers over the past couple of years that there's potentially they're going to lose their equity. Uh, that they might be getting these set tax certificates based on the Tyler case. So we've been trying. To protect the county as best we can, uh, from this decision. Uh, but given that the act, the property tax code is what it was until July 10th of this year. I mean, our options were limited. So, but the legislature has made the change and they have made, they're now protecting the homeowner equity in their sales going forward. But we have to deal with the problem of the past properties. And that's where the surplus equity fund is. And we're going to, I think we need to prepare for that because the storm is coming. I would like to manage it in a way that's to our benefit as opposed to having a court judgment entered and saying, well, Connie, you can just pay this money. I've been trying to manage that through the indemnity cases as it is, and we've been having some success with that. That is the basics of what I came to talk about. I have the county agent, I have the treasurer here, people from the treasurer's office and myself, we're prepared to answer any questions that the board may have on this subject. So I'll open the floor. Is that okay?

Uh, we're gonna, we're gonna queue in to just try to keep it organized and, uh, folks, if you do have a question, maybe you can announce whether it's for the state's attorney, the trustees that are present or the treasurer. That would be probably helpful. Um. So, the 1st, 3, I have is member Newquist balance and then bullet. So, remember new quest.

Thank you. I have a couple questions. 1st of all, I'm just a little confused about the 20 dollar fee collecting it from the tax buyers. If we're not going to have any more tax buyers, who are we collecting that 20 dollar fee from?

Well, there's going to be payments coming in right now. A lot of these taxpayers have got to make the 2nd payment. Uh, on the tax certificates they have.

Oh, okay.

So so when they come in to make a payment, that 20 dollar fee is going to be tacked on to anything that a taxpayer comes in. And trust me, there are as we have 2000 certificates out there. Yeah, potentially. Uh, we could be having 2000 payments come in and we're going to tag 20 dollars. That's not refundable. Each and every 1 of those payments. Okay. That's what that's why that's so important.

Okay. Got it. And then my next question is, and I. I don't know if this is for you, or if it's for the treasurer, like, how much if we implement this, you know, going to the trustee about how much revenue are we for going in the short run? I mean.

I think the treasurer can give a general idea.

On average your the tax sale brings in between 9 and 13Million dollars each year. So, approximately less than a half a percent of the total levy levy is about 2.4Billion.

But we're talking between 9 and 13Million dollars. Okay.

So that's spread across all the taxing bodies in the county.

Okay. And then the last 2 are just pretty quick and I think they're probably for you, Tim. Um, so funding if we created this surplus equity fund, how much do are you looking? Do you think we need.

That's hard to say the incentive for the tax buyers that hold certificates now is to drag out that ownership of that certificate. The longer they hold it, the more their interest grows, right? So, they, if they just bought it last year. They may hold it. We're gonna, we're gonna ask them to come into the new system, but they don't have to. So, if they drag it out. We may get more fees next year and the next payment, the first round, and then the second round. And it's hard to estimate exactly what it'll do, but their incentive is to hold that longer because the, the new law says they get their taxes repaid that they paid and their interest.

Okay.

And every day means a lot of money to them because that interest is running at 18%.

They're not getting the surplus anymore. They're only getting the interest, but any, I mean, are we talking $10 million? Are we talking one? I mean, any idea that,

On the 20 dollars?

No, on the creating the, the, uh, surplus equity fund.

Yeah, our liability will be well, way more than that. 20 dollars will ever grow.

Right? Yeah. Any idea how much though?

We've been putting our heads together trying to come up with that number for you and all we can give you is the worst case scenario.

Okay.

The worst case is your when it might be 10 or 11Million dollars. Okay. That we're on the hook for if everybody. Came in and sued us for the equity that the surplus equity that they've lost. And we had to pay it, it could be 1011Million dollars for a couple of years.

And then how far back can people go to make a claim?

2 years, these are being filed under 1983. so the general statute of limitations is 2 years. Uh, but I. You know, the federal courts really haven't sorted that out yet. So I don't want to speculate because there's a potential. They could, it could go back to 2 years before Tyler. Uh, you know, and they, you know, like I said, the class action is on file now.

Okay. So we're not talking 5 years or 10 years. We're talking. Yeah.

And the identity or 10 years. So, I mean, the claims file under the identity fund are 10 years. So it's. You know, it's going to take some period of time. I want to keep in mind though. We've already kind of foreclosed some of these. Because if the people are taking the 99,000 in the identity fund. Well, they're foreclosing the rest of the equity loss. So, there are, I have a list. Of the of the properties, that's where I got it from that. Um, some of the people that are on that list filed the deadly claims and they've been settled.

So, it's a court action, right?

It's a court action filed with the court. So, when there is a judgment entered for the 99, they lose a claim for the rest of their equity loss, which. Sometimes it's quite significant.

Okay, so if they participate in that process, they can't participate in this process. You cannot double dip. Okay. Okay. Those are my questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Member.

Oh, I thought you got me on the 3rd 1. okay. Um, I have a question. 1 of the things that I see happen in 2023, the state of Illinois. Never did anything, so we have to file state law. So that's what we did. And then somewhere around Christmas, I don't remember the exact. No, last Christmas, I don't remember the exact date. Um, there was a lawsuit in Cook County. And then the state said that Cook County people. Are following a different law, which isn't the 1 you're talking about and so they have lawsuits now for all the back equity going back in time. And all those people are coming forward and I don't know how far back in time they went and I don't even know what the lawsuit number or none of that is. But I'm taking it from what you're saying is that we are liable the same as cook county would be for all the back. Stuff that wasn't taken care of the right way according to Tyler.

Well, I will say this, uh. Look county is different and they look specifically at some of the procedures that cook county was implementing. We did not do the same thing as they did. We were trying to be proactive when this decision came down and I knew it was trouble. That's why we started getting the notices. We started people. We treasurer was required to participate in the tax sale. Do I to sign off on a, on an identity thing? Now? Not everybody did it, but we got some people to do that that in the event that we were, they would have to identify us for the loss of the surplus. Um, I was objecting. To tax deeds when I was in court, and I'm going to see, I was putting on the record. Hey, you know, there's this Tyler case out there and these people's home surplus are going to be protected. So, the treasurer and the state's attorney, we're trying to take some actions. And there's, of course, be in court transcripts that we try to slow down this process a little bit to protect us. I think that's going to differentiate us from some of the other counties that may be on the hook.

The. What we've tried to do is protect us from the future, but we can't control those individuals who may go into court and try to take some action and those cook county cases and others may service precedents. For those actions, and you don't know what the judge is going to do. You don't know what's going to happen on appeal. You don't know what it, but in general. We've done the right thing. All our taxpayers are given notice right after the title case came down. They were at least given a disclosure that says this, this equity that if you get this house 3 years from now, if you take it by deed, this equity that you're taking from that prior homeowner may be in jeopardy. We told them that then the next year we asked them to sign it. Uh, there was no law that made them do that, but we asked them to sign it. And so we've done what we could do, because, as you said, the existing law said, I had to hold that tax sale. I had to do it, but so we're kind of in between until Illinois took this action. We couldn't do what we're asking you to do today.

So, I had 1 other question for Scott. Seeing how is the state of Illinois refused to do anything about it. It wouldn't have to be immediately, but three years, they've done nothing. Can we sue the state of Illinois for our damages?

I'm not going to speculate on some, you know, I mean, obviously the state has sovereign immunity. So suing the state of Illinois, I don't know where that's going to go. In fact, well, I'm not going to say it. Well, what I'm getting at here do not want me to talk about my prior cases, but there's a sovereign immunity issue.

That's going to be sovereign immunity. If you take it to a federal court, you could probably sue the state for damages because they didn't obey what the decision was in 2023. I mean, I get it. They wouldn't do it in 1 month. It would take some time, but 3 years is. Too much time, so I think that we should look into a federal lawsuit against the state of Illinois for not. Doing what they should have did back in 2023.

I will say this, we will take a look at that option and if there's a route. And you can take my word at this, if there's a route for us to go, we're going to take it. Uh, I that's this is what we do if there's a route that we could take to to make the state accountable. We're going to take it now another option. Possibly if your legislative committee is to get the state to fund. To give us a grant to fund this surplus equity fund that might be a legislative thing that the board can do and add it to its legislative Genesis. Hey, you know, you stuck us with the surplus equity fund. How about a grant to pay for some of this stuff? You know, we'll have a little bit of a better idea. Maybe they create a grant process where counties can apply to the state and say, hey, look, we got these properties we want. So, that that possibility is out there too. So, I don't know if, you know, using a carrot or a stick would be the best approach on this, but certainly, I think that's an option that can be added to the legislative agenda and maybe that's something they will do.

Your your option is a good option to help the county, but it doesn't help taxpayers because they're going to say, yeah, we'll give you a grant. Then they're going to do a new tax to make us pay for it. So, it's, you know, it's a, it's a circle big shell game. You know what I mean? I understand it. Yeah. So, uh, I like your, you know, the 20 dollar fee. I get it. It makes sense. You know, and I have to think more about the other 1, but I think it makes sense, but I got to make sure. So, with that Joe, can you make sure that you send. This presentation on email to everybody on the board. Yeah, absolutely. But I think you made a good presentation and it makes sense. The PowerPoint is in the packet.

And it's on your agenda and yeah.

If you want a separate email, we can do that read the agenda. I didn't go into the packet because I already had a good idea because I've been doing studying all this stuff for probably 7, 8 months.

The packet has information about the trustee. There's a flow chart that's in the packet that talks the differences between what the trustee does and what the private taxpayer does. The packet that for this meeting is quite informative. There's also something from the, uh, it's at the, uh, they did a summary of the law. Uh, that I found would to be satisfactory to give it goes into a little bit more depth. Of what the statute is, and then the next month or the next month or 2, there might be some additional material. Uh, made available to you that goes into detail about this as well.

I, like I said, I think you gave a good presentation and the stuff makes sense what you're saying, you know, so I don't have no argument with you, but, uh. I mean, look at the room that we have most of the people, but not all. So, yeah, when the more information is available, it'll be sent out to the board members.

Yeah.

All right. Thank you. Uh, member Butler.

Thank you so. For preparations that are we required to fund this surplus equity fund? I heard 20 dollars and then possible grants. What other preparations would be necessary to to meet the 10 or 11Million dollar liability.

Well, I, I don't know what it's kind of hard to forecast what's going to come into the surplus equity fund in terms of the fees. Obviously, if we get that 20 dollar. Thing, if we get that done this month. Uh, and get that on before everybody comes in and makes their payments that that's going to help boost that fund.

Uh, but that that. I mean, that's would hardly make a scratch 40 grand 10 or 11. you're right.

I mean, the fees are not going to cover what we're going to have to have. I acknowledge that. That's why I said number 4. Uh. We're going to have to set aside some there's going to have to be some money that's going to have to be budgeted and put into this fund.

So, does that mean that raising property taxes? I mean, what I would exactly that's I'm just curious as to what those preparations are because. You know, that's a lot of money.

It is.

I look, it's probably something that this body needs to figure out. I don't know if the state's attorney would have, uh, should give his opinion on how to fund it. Um, that would be up to the legislation. Yeah.

Okay. So then my other question is, uh, uh, does this new system that you're proposing, uh, prevent us from having to cover, uh, you know, these, uh, this surplus equity fund, uh, for past, uh, for tax deeds. So.

So going forward, we're not going to have an issue. So we know at least right now we know where the end point is. We have 2000 outstanding certificates and we're are going we're. We have a process and a plan in place to try to bring those back in and put those into the new system. The 70 or 80 tax deeds that have already passed. That's where I mean, that's something we're, we're going to have to deal with that and. I think the treasurer gave an indication he thought possibly 10 or 11Million dollars. Based on the values of the property and the taxes that were old. Calculating on the properties that went out that are currently held by private tax buyers from distressed homeowners. So, uh, that those are going to be the funds, at least in the short term that we may need. Uh, to fund this equity fund.

But going forward, well, everything's going to be auctioned. So you're, you're saying to pay off this equity fund. We need let max maximum estimate 10 or 11Million dollars and once we pay that off, we don't have that burden anymore.

The burden will be essentially taken care of the only the only thing that I would say that the 1 and I want to open disclosure if the auction. Let's say somebody has a 300,000 dollar home and they come in and nobody bids and the minimum somebody comes in and takes the minimum bid for 30,000 dollars. Theoretically, that would be something that. Somebody could make a claim under the surplus equity. That's why I think it's important to turn the process over the tax. Agent who's had a very good check track record of getting monies on the. Junk properties that they're stuck with in the tax sale. So they've had a pretty good job of. Of turning low value properties into in the month. So, uh, I, I think it's better. Uh, that's why we're recommending that we follow the legislation path and. Take the take the tax buyers out that I think that increases.

The ability to avoid the future liability, so just 1 last question for clarification. So, when a land bank buys this property, or takes this property, and there's equity left does does the, I don't know, but this is not a land bank.

We're not we're not purchasing the property. When the county, when I say that the county is going to take the property, they're going to just, they're going to take the place of the tax buyer. So they're going to technically hold a tax certificate. That essentially, in 3 years, they'll be able to auction the property. So, the homeowner will lose the property if they don't redeem. The trustee and the county is the technical owner during the, because we will have the technical tax certificate. But we're not paying any cash for this. There are no cash changing hands. It's just that we're essentially going to be. For lack of a better term, we're going to be the holding. The holding agent during the redemption period while people have the opportunity to redeem.

Correct, but on these sales, if if people are bidding on it, and someone tried to bid a dollar, and someone said, that's crazy. I'll give you 100,000 for it. And another guy says, 150,200,000 and there's 30,000 dollars in equity. The 30,000 gets paid back to the Homer and you don't have it added to this of. Correct this liability, but if a land bank buys that property, they don't have the same responsibility. Do they. They don't have to pay that. That's what I'm asking.

I mean, there's no land bank or anything involved in this process, but I think Dan, maybe this will clarify the trustees work in conjunction with the county. They essentially work for the county. So, when we say the trustees will take over the deed, it's actually will county. Okay, they just they do the work for us, but this isn't okay.

Yeah, does that help?

Nothing like that.

All right. I guess I was missing the point of this whole presentation. I thought we were investigating all aspects of the land banks and stuff.

No, this has nothing to do with the land bank is that ship has sailed.

Okay.

Um. All right, thank you. Uh, sorry, I turned you back on number Berkowitz.

Thank you speaker van dying. Okay. So just to make sure that I completely understand this new process is going to eliminate the private. Tax buyer.

Yeah, and if you pass the right.

Okay, exactly. Um. Okay, so who is. The trustee is the trustee we key you've referred to the will county trustee welcome. Is that treasurer brophy?

No, so what happens is, uh, Neil, you want to come down here and introduce yourself a little bit. So. As I stated during the presentation at the annual tax sale, some of the properties don't get a bit. There's no, so no private taxpayer comes in those properties still. Go are still part of the tax sale. They go to our will kind of trustee who we hire with. Hey. And it's Joseph Meyer and associates.

Yes.

And Neil Wallace is the general counsel.

I mean, you're introducing maybe explain a little bit how you thank you, Scott speaker and board members. The. The statute provides that the county board is the is the trustee for the taxing districts. We are the tech Joseph and associates is the tax agent appointed by the board. Frequently in conversations, we speak in shorthand. So we say, hey, we're giving it to the trustee because that's the easier way to say it. But you, as the county board are the trustee. We have a contract to be the tax agent to perform the legal and administrative work on behalf of the county trustee, because you all don't have time to go out there and post auction signs and such things. So, we do that we are the tax agent, but you are the county trustee and you will have the overarching control of this process.

Okay. So the definition of the trustee is the county, which I would assume falls in which department the treasurer's department.

It is the county board itself, the county board.

So, we, each county board member is a trustee.

Now, each county, the county board as a whole. Is the trustee for the taxing districts and so then the statute allows you to appoint a tax agent to perform the legal and administrative work. Of that, because you are acting anyone acting as trustee is acting for the beneficiaries of that trust. The beneficiaries of the trust are each 1 of all of the various taxing districts, including the county.

Okay. Thank you. I appreciate that clarification. So, um, Scott, let me, let me just. I, I need to just kind of. Go through the whole process currently. This happened in our own neighborhood squatters moved in the homeowner lost the property because they quit paying rent. The, um, no 1 would help us remove the squatters and eventually the property owner lost their property because they could not. Afford to pay the mortgage. Um, I even myself could not even get the squatters to answer the door. So that home 1 day, the, the people were. The squatters were removed, even though we asked everybody to help us remove them. It never happened. But the day the property owner lost that property, I guess it went into foreclosure. Miraculously, those squatters were removed, they were gone. And at that, and during this whole time, of course, we have our minimal homeowners assessment dues. They weren't paying that either. Um. Immediately after that property was finally vacant. There was a guy came in, demoed it or renovated it and there was a. For sale sign on that property faster than you could you could imagine. That house was sold for top dollar the homeowner who lost the house lost all their equity got nothing. From that sale, and we never got our assessment fees either. And but the point is, is that homeowner. Through no fault of their own lost. Everything and somebody made big bucks. so according to the way you've described it described it in that situation in the current who's making the money on the house when it's sold the real estate agent gets a commission i'm sure does the tax the tax buyer then gets if the whole house sold first 500 000 they get that whole 5 000 500,000 dollars, that's what happens today. Right?

Well, you're, you're talking about a mortgage foreclosure situation, which is not what we have here. This is a tax. You know, banks or, you know, what people agree to in their mortgages. That's. That's that's a completely different type of thing, but but it includes the taxes.

So if the, if the. Like Scott was trying to say, if you were to purchase a home and you didn't have the cash, you've got to go.

I understand that.

So the bank would cover all of that.

So, Scott, in that case, the county never loses any taxes? You're telling me that in those cases, the Will County receives all the property taxes that are due? Yes or no? Well, I...

Your example that you gave is not. What we're talking about here, you're talking about a mortgage foreclosure that is covered by a different set of statutes and different rules and. No, I'm just saying, do we or do we not in the taxpayer? So currently now with the new act in place, because it's effective now that property has to be auctioned and the surplus goes back to the whole Homer under the old system. If somebody didn't pay their taxes and a private taxpayer came in and. Uh, took took the property, uh, if it wasn't redeemed. The tax buyer would receive the benefit.

And that was under a statute that current state statute that's current. Okay. So repealed. So what I'm wondering, it was mentioned we have 2000 of these properties. What is the equity value of those 2000 and that might be a question for treasurer and to a 1Million 10 to 11Million dollars.

No, that's for the, that's for the deeds. That's where the deeds, so the 2000 properties. We, we're not, I don't want to speculate on that at all. Do we know those? We know those are not finalized. They're in the, they're in the, they're in the system. We should write a treasure should have that amount.

Let's speculate just so, you know, worst case scenario, maybe the 75 to 80 that already got transferred. We're talking about are 10 to 11Million dollars of risk. That we may be subject to so if you take the current 2000. Assume that a lot of them are going to be redeemed and paid the taxes will be paid. They'll never go to tax deed. If those tax buyers were allowed to proceed and go to. Take those deeds and if it was the worst case scenario, and you end up with 75 or 80 of that group, you'd have another 10 or 11 or with some inflation 12 to 15Million dollars at risk. Does that help? Okay. And now in the situation you were talking about, you're talking about a lender's foreclosure. So we have 2 different processes for people losing their home a lender's foreclosure. So, the lender has 1st, lien rights in many cases, they don't make their loan payment. The lender can call the note do immediately. Go to court, get an order, take the home, they hire the sheriff, evict the homeowner or who's ever in it. That was an eviction, a legal eviction. Now, that lender takes title that property. They can, of course, sell it, which they did. Buyer comes in pays equity at that sale. All our taxes were paid, so that's very different from a tax sale in a case of a tax sale. There is no lender. Usually. There's no lender to get involved in foreclosing or kicking anybody out.

So, Tim, what happens if the tax buyer, they hold that house as a private investment and they rent it. Does the homeowner ever get any part of their equity back in that case in the old system?

No. If they were successful in getting a deed from a judge. They took title of the home, cleaned it up, rented it out. That's theirs now. And the prior homeowner, the prior homeowner didn't get any benefit under the new system. Yes, that tax buyer, if you don't approve our suggestion, and we hold a private tax sale, like we've done in the past, those private tax buyers then have to hold an auction. And when they do, anybody can bid on it. A land bank would probably be outbid. Land bank is a member of the public too. They could bid on it, but they probably won't succeed. If it's of market value, some private owner will bid on it, take it, and put it back into play. Does that make sense?

So we, our target is that we need to have a Approximately 15Million or more dollars to cover these 2000 properties as they. Because that's the home equity.

That's a wild guess at a potential. Okay. It's a guess, but we've got 11 on the old ones, maybe 10, 11 million and maybe 15 million on the new ones. Okay.

So do you work with the assessor? Because we all get reassessed and our property taxes continue to rise. So are you communicating with the assessor to, to, To make sure you're on top of whether or not this dollar is rising or do these do these properties? Is there a hold on their assessments or their tax bills?

We're, we're, we're, we're kind of really strain what we're talking about. Okay.

I'm just curious because at the end of the day, um, that's if if. If taxes rise, then that means we have to or property values rise your risk is greater that we do not have a risk.

Yeah, your risk is greater as prices rise.

Okay, and then you have a plan to bring in the 2000 certificates. We're going to work the treasurer and the state's attorney's office have a plan to try to get those back in. Okay.

Scott, how did you determine the, the 20 dollar fee? How did you determine that? It should be 20 dollars. That's in the statute.

That's in the letter. Oh, okay. That's not no determination there. That's what they said that we could do a little low.

Thank you. Okay.

All right. Member actually. Thank you, Mr. chairman, I was wondering if there's any move at the state for us to amend this to change it back to where we need it to be. And then, secondly, you know, we're talking about setting up a land bank. They have a 1Million dollars sitting there. They have to spend. Maybe we should take that 1Million dollars and put it in this fund to see this program and move from there.

Thank you for your comment number.

Hi, hi. Um, okay. I apologize Mr piles. I'm trying to wrap my head around all of this, but, um. I looked at the trustee program impact summary and, um. Is there any independent evaluation of that? Because that obviously came from Josephine Meyer. So I'm just wondering.

Well, I, I don't know. Are we talking like an audit?

I'm just wondering is. Is are we accepting that at face value or should we be looking into that more? I'm not entirely sure. I'm sorry.

Maybe the trustees can come up and explain how they come with come up those numbers gladly in your packet.

There's an impact summary provided. So, of course, we end that. That term, it's from 94 to 21, because the others are still active.

Okay.

But in that group from 94 to 2021, 12,599 parcels that they handled 99% of those tax dollars were distributed to the taxing bodies. So, I think they've done a great job.

That sounds like a really, really good job. Um, can I ask how the contract is with Joseph be Meyer? Is it like, per parcel? Is it? I don't understand.

Certainly, um, we don't, um, I'm sorry, Whitney straw, my, I'm president of Joseph, you buy our associates and work with Neil. Um, we've been, um, as that impact summary shows, we've been with you guys since 1994. um, um, we started, we do, we're in 95. it says that on there too. We're currently in 95 of 102 counties. We don't charge the county or the taxing districts directly anything we work on a commission basis. When, if we get the taxes collected this percentage penalty that we've been talking about, Scott's been talking about at a reduced rate. Now, with the new statute, will we get the penalty and the tax districts get all of their money every penny and all the fees are paid to every various departments and various fees, including this new 20 dollar fee and that sort of thing. Um. If it goes all the way through, it doesn't get collected. Those go to a surplus auction. This is the way we've always done it. Um, and then the, we get a commission if and only if we sell that property and that's how we, we get paid. And so it's. It incentivizes us to do the work as best we can. That's why we're in 95 counties. We're very proud of that. Um, and, um. We have our process has always been. Compatible with the new, the new statutes and this and this Tyler decision, because of the way that we've done the process. So, it's just kind of solidifying that for us, which is nice.

And I also want to say that the trustee and the treasurer's office. Uh, the money, or the surpluses from any sales that the trustee have handled since Tyler. We have, we didn't distribute that money. We were proactive and held on to it in case we for. When the storm came, we've got the money, right? So we're holding on to any surplus from anything that the trustees handled. So, where we're again, we're trying to be ahead of the curve here. And we took, we, we took that action early on before the legislation was passed. Anything the trustee handled the week, at least they had some control over surplus has been helped and the treasurer hasn't.

Well, that sounds great and I wonder what's wrong with the other 7 counties. That's all I have to say. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Thank you, Joe. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Tim. And actually, Tim, if you don't mind walk into the microphone, because. So, what I want to try and do is net this out for us. Um, Tim, we've had conversations you and I, as the speaker and that kind of stuff to 2000 properties. Um, and we're looking at potentially 75 to 80%, um, for over the past 2 years.

No, 75 to 80 is a unit count of the number that have been sold.

Yeah, but that's over the past two years. That's the old thing. Our conversations before, I believe we were saying that most of these get resolved in, let's just call it 95 to plus more percent. That does fall in line with our 75 to 80 number that comes out for the two years. So realistically, if we move things over to the trustee, That should resolve basically those 2000, those are taken off the table and those won't be a headache for us in the future. Yes. So, really our focus is on the 75 to 80. And of those 75 to 80, the 2 variables in there. Is do they have equity and if they do have equity, will the land owner actually come in and want the money? So that's really our exposure because if we take this action and we go and we, we move these over to the trustee, we should not have any major headaches moving forward. Our focus is on the 75 to 80 and I believe Scott, you had said that you're also in, you know, working those situations too, to try and resolve some of that. So, I mean, what we need to really look at is the potential equity exposure we have in that 75 to 80. And if there is any equity exposure in them, and we could maybe even assume that half of them We won't we won't have a landowner come forward and or an equity position in those.

It's really hard to tell.

I agree.

I agree, but it's a good evaluation. You made.

Yeah. So I'm just trying to net it out for us as a board on where decisions need to be made is is. I don't want to say don't worry about the 2000, but historically speaking. 95969798% of them resolve themselves. Yeah.

So this is a good scenario to to account for. You've got some excess reserves that we've been enjoying from decent interest earnings. Um. And it's a good idea, this is the occasion, when you get a law like this passed, you weren't aware of, this is why you have excess reserves. You can tag a lot of those to just be on hold for a while, doesn't leave them there forever, but to be on hold, in case we suffer losses, got the money to pay them, and after the storm clears, we'll get to a new normal, all the taxing bodies will be made whole again, and everything will get back to normal, and then you can release the tag on those funds. Just a suggestion, the board can do whatever they want to cover this risk, but that's my suggestion.

Well, I mean, in the case here, we did have excess cash reserves in the past years, which is, which is. Exceeding the norm, but in this case here, we do have it and yes, reserves are meant to to bridge gaps like this here. But your point here is, is the fact that. If we don't have that exposure, that money needs to be put back in to the right bucket. Because our exposure within 2 years and should be should be disappear.

Well, let me just add 1 thing, keep in mind that the 70 to 80 that are out there are probably covered by the shared versus Henry case, the class action that we are party to. So, it's not really in all honesty. It's not an if. It's more of a when, because the chart. And I have a chart, you know, that that has these properties, which you've seen. Uh, those were turned over in discovery and share versus Henry. They're in play, so it's not an if with those. Because the plaintiffs in that case are aware of those properties dollars to donuts. There's going to be letters going out. I can tell you. I don't want to talk about it here, but there's, there's a pretty, there's a better than. you know, a 90% likelihood that everybody that's on that list is gonna be making a claim.

And some of them were, I'll call it scrap properties.

Uh, some of them were, but the scrap properties are, those were on the trustees list that was not included in the 7080 that the ones that are on the trustees list. Where we have the equity protected for those so I know those are not really that's not an issue for us. There's actually more out there because the trustees hold on the 70 to 80 are private. Tax buyers that have bought property have the tax deed. Residential home, we're not talking about commercial here. We're only talking about the, uh. The residential here, which is what the focus of the Tyler case was. So I want to keep that in mind. So, as for the 2000, like I said, we have a plan to bring those in. Are we are some of those going to are going to escape through the cracks? Yes. Because the tax buyers do not have to. Turn those in, they bought them under the old system and they, if we get fought, I'm going to fight them. I'm going to defend as best I can, but could some fall through the cracks? So you're right. I think that you're making the right assessment. I'm not right. You know, I, I wouldn't completely forget about that.

No, I'm not. I'm not saying we forget about him. I'm just, I'm just trying to put a scope around our exposure here.

Yes, uh, and we're like I said, we're, we have a plan. Uh, we have a plan where we're going to, we're going to deal with that. I think it's a pretty good plan. And if the plan works. No, there won't be any exposure at all.

I like to hear that Scott. Thank you. Remember new question.

Yeah.

Oh, there we go. Thanks. I just wanted to clarify in the 2000 because you had said earlier, you know, based on my give me a worst case scenario that out of the 2000, we could potentially have another 70 to 80 that would fall under the old plan. So that would potentially be another, you know, 10 to 11Million dollars. But now you're saying that if your plan works. That won't happen. We can take that off the table, but if your plan doesn't work, which, you know, I have no reason to think it won't. We could, in theory, potentially have that additional liability. But at this point, you don't really have any way to tell.

Well, I don't want to I don't want to because I'm under instructions not to we're going to do the best we can. Uh, I'll let our track record and these type of things speak for itself. Uh, but we have, we think we have a good plan. To to to, but I do want to say. You know, there's a scenario where some of these, some of these properties, and if that's a really good property. They're going to fight because if there's a quarter million dollars in equity on a property, they're going to fight. They're not just going to say, oh, okay. Piles wants to do this or the treasurer wants to do that. They're going to fight. So, and this is under the old system where they have a right at the end of the day to take a tax deed if they don't redeem. So you're correct in that the great majority of these are going to redeem, but you're going to see similar numbers to what we have now.

We've experienced, so in the usual case, you'd have, you could guess at the average. Lately, we've had some activity in increased FOIA requests for this information. So there's new interest out there, parties that want to get a piece of this. So that's why we're so unsure of what will actually happen. Okay, thank you. Member O'Galla?

So, thank you a couple of things 1, um, you know, making the statement that we have cash reserves for something like this is not why we have cash reserves because we never anticipated that we would have the situation coming before us. We have kept cash reserves because that's what you do when you have a government entity and you keep that money from 1. Tax collection season to another, I just want everyone to make it clear. We don't have cash reserves for this particular purpose. We can use it for this particular purpose, but we don't have it for this particular purpose. And then I do want to ask another thing. Um, I'm assuming and I don't know that you guys have done a complete analysis of these properties of what the equity might be. In them, and and then how is that equity determined from the point of the fact that they didn't pay their 1st, 2nd, 3rd.

Taxes years, or from the auction or 1, 1 is that calculated from so what we, what I, what we've done, or what the treasurer's office done for discovery in the shared case. So it's not too difficult. We take. We take the assessed value of the properties. So, and properties are assessed at 1, 3rd of what we think their market value is. So, we times that by 3. So, if a property is assessed at 33,000 dollars, that would make the fair market value roughly 100,000 dollars. So, determine what the equity loss would be. We take the amount of the taxes penalties interest and everything that is owed. That gets paid. So, if there was an auction in the, and the property brought in, say, 60,000 dollars, and there were 20,000 dollars in interest and back taxes and penalties. And the auction brought in 60, you gave you, you measure the equity by the value at the auction, which was 60. Minus the taxes penalties and interest of 20 leaving 40,000. am I doing that? Right? See, I should have been a math major.

Which you kept telling me you don't do the math. You only do lawyers. My name is Julie Shatina. I'm the chief deputy for the treasurer's office. So I've been working with Scott for ever since this law came into effect four years ago in different various levels. We've been working on the Sherrick case together. And then now this new public act together. And because we're getting requests left and right for what we have on file for equity and things like that. I've done it on 2 forms 1 on the trustee level where we have held back. And it's, it's, we know what we can see with the trustee level, because we use the total redemption amount and any of the fees or costs or anything like that. And that's where we come up with what we would call the equity that we have put out. The problem is, is that for on the trustee level, we can use that variable. We can take the total redemption amount and subtract off of that the assessment values, the market value and whatever the differences between what our assessor picks up as the market value and what they've. Collected at the auction, that's where we come up with the equity. Okay. So, to answer your question about working with the assessor, we can only send information to them when things are not showing up on our sale nearest properly. For instance, if the assessor picks up a property that shows a house and a tax buyer buys that thinking, he's getting a house and it's a vacant lot. Tax buyer can go out there bid on it. He has no due diligence to say I didn't know there wasn't a house on there. I looked at the property on the maps. I looked at the properties. It showed a house. I put myself out there. The law does not say they have to do their due diligence. They only have to go to the tax sale and purchase it. That's all any of the tax buyers, including Josephine Myers. So, when they have that, we have notified assessor saying, you know, we got notification that the assessments are not where they're supposed to be. The pictures on are not showing what they're supposed to be. And we can only do that. The treasure cannot mandate the assessor to correctly do their properties. Right? We have to use those values to determine what the equity is to be able to determine what their equity is on the trustee side. Now, that's on the trustee. That's easy. That's an easy route for all of us because we can see it. They do the research. They're the title people. They go out there and look and see if there's mortgages. They go out there and see what's out there to determine equity and they supply us with that information. Now, on the tax buyer side, we don't know what they do. Nobody polices them. They have to do it themselves and whatever they are obligated to do as a tax buyer with this new law. Will determine what they do moving forward, but everything that we are in the hook for for the past 2 years. We are taking their. I did the research. I went on the recorder system. I looked at what they sold the properties for. That's all we can use. There's where the equity starts, whatever tax buyer sold their property that they took tax deed for. And there's 200, 300,000 dollars sales out there. They might have only had a redemption of 20,000 dollars. If they. If we look at the sale price that they sold it for on the recorder side, take off the redemption amount, which is what the attorneys are gonna do. There's your equity. That's what the tax payer will get back. And that's what we are on the hook for at the county. That's what they are going to go to court, submit a document, and maybe there might be some fees or extra costs in there that they can prove. Under the old system, a mortgage company was not responsible for a tax buyer to pay. If there was a mortgage out there, and the mortgage didn't redeem the taxes, or didn't go out there and pay the taxes, they would have to file a judgment against the property owner themselves. To get that mortgage, because the tax buyer. Is not on the hook to pay that mortgage. There are only certain leads tax buyers on the hook for most of them are EPA leads. Those EPA lanes where they buy a property that has tax gasoline tanks in the ground and that. They're on the hook for anything that when the trustee gets, if there's anything that we cannot remove on our on the trustee side, if that lean goes with it. They put it in there. Catalog that goes out that the people can buy. We don't know what the taxpayers do. But all those properties that are on the list, those 75 properties and anything moving forward that. We attempt to try to get back from those 2000. Then the taxpayers know that they are not they don't have to now the court system. They were really good about giving them the capability to go in and say. We don't want to go through the whole process. We're going to file for a sale on air. And the court set it up that they can do that with interest. So they have every right to go in and do that. We may be challenged on our end because it didn't give us the opportunity to file an admin sale on there to do it, but we're going to try it because the worst case that can happen. We're challenged. Scott will have to represent us. We'll see where that goes and that's why we cannot guarantee out of those 2000. what possibility we're on the hook for. But of those 2,000, we would have to calculate it the same way that we did those other 75. And that's by researching. For the Sherritt, I had to give them information that what the market value was at the time we sold it and what the market value was at the time the tax buyer went for tax deed. The determining factor is when they went for tax deed. Some of the tax buyers deeded it back to themselves. Basically, because they might have been a property management group or something and when they went in and did that. They used their consideration cost of the redemption amount plus whatever fees recording fees and all that. So, technically, on those cases, the homeowner has no way to claim any equity because there is none to claim all of those cases will hit our indemnity fund. Because they can go after that 99,000 indemnity fund and say, well, the taxpayer either didn't sell it. It's still under his name or there was no equity. And that's where Scott's going to get challenged with our equity funds too. We only get to collect was it 20 dollars. For our for our and for indemnity, so our indemnity fund, if you looked at, we, we sell anywhere from 4,000 to 5,000 parcels. Regardless if they go to trust your tax buyer, those fees is what we collect. That's not enough to pay out 1 case. So. We have to use those 2 as consideration. Those are cases that the county pays back also, because we are obligated. To pay them back interest if we don't have the money in our fund. So those cases are possibilities that can also be added to the situations that we presented today.

Thank you Julie that that helped a lot. Thank you for that explanation. Appreciate it.

Thank you Judy, uh, moving on to remember bullet.

Hi, I, I'm pretty much with you on everything you've said. I just want to clarify if I'm a tax buyer. And I'm not a tax buyer if I was a tax buyer, and you reach out to me to try and move me into this new system and I say, no. Does that mean I still have the ability to get that equity out of the house because I was under the old system or does that mean. Either way, whether I go to the new system, or I stay where I am, I have no more access.

To the equity of that property, so under the 2000 certificates that are still pending, those are under the old system. And yes, if let's say we did nothing. Yes, they would get they could get the equity. They could get the equity that property they were under the old system. But again, I want to re, emphasize. 1800 to 1900 of those certificates are going to be redeemed. They're going to pay. So, we're, we're really talking about a very much smaller number. Secondly, uh. It's true that, uh, you know. Julie kind of indicated what we're going to do a little bit. We're going to, we're going to probably declare these a sale and errors. And the sale and air being that the surplus equity is the distressed homeowner is not being protected. We're going to, we're going to run that up the flagpole and we're going to see where it goes. So, the treasurer's office is going to implement that. And if there's objections, that's when I'll get involved and, you know, I'll. You know, in my usual way, I'm going to make it. They're going to be better off taking the interest on the sale and air because they won't make money on their investment because they get interest. On the sale and air, I'm going to do my best to convince them. That's the route to take take the money now, as opposed to taking money. Several years from now, after we've challenged it up on appeal and everything else that. I have a tendency to do and people don't want to go my way.

So, my, my motivation as a tax buyer is to get my money now.

Yes, take the take the sure invest interest now. Because it could be years before I see any, um, is that the, I, the headwinds are not with the tax buyers right now because. The Tyler case is indicating that the people should be getting their, their money. Uh, the legislative, the Illinois public policy now indicates the surpluses are protected. Uh, I, I, I think the headwinds are are in our favor on that and I. I think that the legislature has given an out. To these taxpayers to make their money now.

Is there the ability on the county's part to get any percentage of that equity that the taxpayer. Got.

Back to the homeowner, there is no there right now in the shared case. We've tried to file 3rd party actions, which are essentially asking the court. Okay, maybe we did something wrong, but the tax buyer as a 3rd party, they received the benefit. We want them to help us out and the courts have said no. Hmm, because they're, they're suing under 1983. And there is no contribution from 3rd parties in a 1983 act because. The 3rd party, the private entity can't commit a 1983 action or violation only a public entity can. So that's the roadblock that we're running into. Could that get changed on appeal? It could. We think we've made some good arguments there, but right now we haven't getting a lot of traction on that, but we're, we're trying some other avenues to try because this is a patently unfair. That in Illinois, the entities that did the taking who received no benefit from the taking now we're being asked to pay. And I, we, we really perceive that to be a problem and we're going to advance it as best we can.

Okay, a couple of questions. Well, the 1st, 1, what you said, you know, it's not fair that we have to pay, but it's also not fair for the people that lose their houses that they don't get all their equity. So, you know, there's a double sided coin. You know, does the government take the hit or the people take the hit? You know, so, you know, that's kind of, you know, when you say it's not fair. Well, in my mind, it's not fair to the people that own their houses that are losing their equity. So, you know, I don't even want to go any further with that. But what I wanted to find out, the ninety nine thousand dollar indebted fund limit, that's from the old plan. And the new plan doesn't include a 99,000 dollar and the identity fund is still in place. It's in place. Yes. What if the value of the house is over 99,000? Well, they would probably make a surplus equity thing and instead. Surplus equity, so you can't do both.

You got to choose.

Okay. And I have 1 other question. I'm running this down. We got a lot of work to do to go over all this stuff, but I like what you proposed anyway, but now the next problem that I see is, uh. The 1 was just listening to the thing is, is that, uh. The way you determine the value of the house is what the assessed value is. Multiplied by 3, so that gives you the market value. But, well, we've got a problem and we'll county with, uh. Businesses like, uh, big box stores or whatever they have were under assessing them for a long, long time. Not all the assessors, but some of them, so let's just say your properties assessed for, um, 100,000 dollars market value. And then it's really worth. A 1Million dollars. What happens to get all the money? So now they're going to go to a surplus equity suit. If they, if they just walked away, and so you're going to be look at the difference, you'd have 900,000 dollars that we'd be liable for.

Is that well, the Supreme Court did throw us a bone this last session. So. The same folks that won the Tyler case went back to court the Supreme Court, trying to say that the measure of damages for these losses should be the fair market value of the homes. Uh, at the time, the deal Supreme Court essentially during the argument and said, well, wait a minute, you're turning the county into a real estate agent. Uh, you know, how does that fair? So, the counter that was that the surplus should be measured from an auction. Auction price, and the Supreme Court agreed with that position. So how they're being measured under, which is the Supreme Court case. I think it's versus Isabella county. How it's being measured now with the Supreme Court in terms of what the equity is. It is now being measured by what. It takes at auction. So, your scenario, we have to look at what the property fetched at an auction you're talking about. Well, properties are under assessed. We can't there's no way to, you know, anybody can go out and say, you answered it.

Well, I mean, I. You know, I saw a flaw and I bring it up. I'm sorry.

Oh, yeah, I mean, Tyler only covered residential. And that's what we're dealing with. The commercial properties right now are not, you know, if a business screws up and don't pay a bill, I don't think that's the same scenario as to somebody losing their personal home and their equity in their own. That's a different thing. There are different redemption periods. There are different rules apply. Right now, this is confined to the Tyler case. The Tyler case dealt with a residential property. That's what we're dealing with here now.

Yeah, I just figured it would work the same way, but you just answered the question. It goes to auction because of the, uh, if a property was missed. Interpreted and as the value, uh, close to auction, it tells you debate.

That's how that's how that's how it gets measured. Correct. Okay.

Thank.

Member Berkowitz, thank you.

Um, so. So, this, this does not cover. Commercial or industrial properties. There is so correct they. They will remain and the going through the process we have today where they have tax sales. Once a year is that correct?

Um, you, you handle it the same way you want to somebody from the.

And then, um, that.

To answer you your 1st question. All of the properties will go. Under the proposal, all of the properties would go and to clarify, I think the pong and the. Tyler case dealt with residential properties. Okay, that doesn't mean that those principles don't apply to commercial and industrial. That means that the Supreme Court cases that gave us these frameworks were residential property. So, to clarify that, but. The properties that go delinquent are commercial industrial vacant. Mineral rights, they run the whole gamut and they're all included. And the treasure has an obligation to sell all of them and they're all going to go 1 of 2 paths, either private tax buyers or the county trustee.

So, there's a choice though, you just said they can go private buyer or trustee.

That's what's being presented is the, the. The state's attorney's office is recommending that the county board. Send all of the properties. To itself as county trustee, and that they'd be prosecuted under. That section of the statute, it's a separate section of the statute that allows for a still an auction. Process, but it is a slightly different process and et cetera than with the private taxpayers.

So, what is the financial burden to us if we take commercial and industrial properties and put it into. The the process you're proposing.

Oh, there's not going to I mean, number 1 in terms of what. Uh, the surplus equity fund, I don't want to I don't want to speculate on that because I'm not we didn't look at the commercial properties. We're talking about a response to Tyler. Tyler dealt with residential homes. I think there are different interests at play with residential homes as opposed to business and commercial properties. Uh, so I. I don't I don't want to go to the to the commercial aspect of it because the rules are different. The redemption period is different.

We're focusing on the funds that the funds that we need to pay the county. So we do need to understand what that number is. How much will the county have to.

Hey, towards these properties, and you're asking about moving forward moving, which correct? So, either process moving forward, the statute has fixed that liability issue. We're only talking about liability in the past. The, we have the 75 to 80 and then the 2000 current open ones. There is no. Future liability on either path the path you could choose to do the regular tax sale. The tax buyers will now instead of just taking the equity will have to go through the sheriff's office for a sheriff's tax deed sale. Um, and the equity will be generated from that sale and paid to the property owner, industrial or commercial residential, whatever. Or you can go through the taxpayer trustee process as opposed to the taxpayer will send it to auction. Like, we always have and that generates the money for the equity. There is no liability in either situation moving forward. There's just the pros and cons that Scott talked about with added added work. On the on the county side, or you just send it over to us to do what we've always done and the ones that we've done, there was never a liability issue anyway, because. We always sent them to auction and that and. The treasurer's office has been holding that equity generated by that those auctions since. Uh, 2023, when the decision came down, so we're not talking about future liability. The auction will set the price and generate the money in either scenario moving forward.

I'm not talking about future liability. I'm talking about the liability we have today. Okay. And as we move forward into what you're proposing. What are what is the cost that the county needs to have. In our reserves, Tim.

Yeah, talking about the value of the 70 to 80 properties. Commercial industrial commercial is not part of what we're talking about.

And very few commercial industrial end up in this situation, because those are usually much more marketable. Can you people step many?

I don't know. Very few have any commercial industrial that I think Julie, I think it's been stated multiple times. It's commercial industrial is not part of this conversation.

So just to sorry, we didn't prepare any of that data because we're worried about homeowners. Um, and as we said, the 75 to 80, maybe a worst case liability of 10 to 11Million. And if the, some of the players in the 2000 group don't play ball, that might be another. 15Million, so we're just worst case scenario trying to give you a ballpark picture.

Fair enough. Um, I don't see any questions from the board members. Do you want to make a summary or, um, you want to. I guess I guess moving forward, you're asking the county board for 2 things a resolution to remove unpaid tax properties from the annual tax sale. Yes. And administer the county trustee, which is actually the county board to administer to administer. Sorry. And then a 2nd resolution to allow the county treasurer to collect 20 dollar fee to generate money for the surplus fund from tax buyers that and.

I, I think it would be a good idea to start making preparations to. Put some money into the surplus equity fund.

Okay.

If we, if we phase it in. You may not have to even really do anything. Drastic if we don't phase it in. And we just get a judgment on the sheriff versus Henry case, then. You know, we may have a different issue. I'm just saying preventatively. It'd be good to phase it in.

Okay, uh, thank you. We have, uh, 1 last question from member or statement.

Yeah, the question so you mentioned that we could phase it in. So, what, what is the anticipation of how let's say these properties come forward? What is the timeline? We'd be looking at. And I know you don't have an exact number of thought, but how long would the process possibly take for, um, them to go to court and ask for dollars back?

It's kind of in the planning stages to a certain extent, because the legislation was just passed on July 10th and it's effective. Now, legislation says that you can file court actions to get if you are lost some equity. You can file a court action and the court will enter. You know, a, an award, uh, against the surplus equity fund and the statute says that we have 12 months to to fund funded from that point. So, uh, how long those are going to take? I guess it depends on when they're filed and how long it takes to work through the court system and.

And that. This is entirely a board decision. Any funds you move into the surplus equity fund are not locked forever. They come right back out into your corporate reserve. So this is just your planning. Uh, so that you're not making a move, like, in other cases, where once you put it in, you can't get it out like the, um. Other the old pub funds once you put them in there for retiree benefits, you can't take them out.

Right?

But this is not that case.

Thank you. That's right. In fact, if if, you know, uh, you know, if we get some of these claims for calls, or they don't make it, you know, for whatever reason. Uh, you know, once the crisis is over and there's money, then you're rebated or do something else with it. Yeah, you're not locked in. I'm just saying. I think we need to have a rainy day fund for this because I think it is coming. Let me explain a little bit of why I say that. So, I'll give you an example of an identity case that we handle recently. So, somebody lost their home in a tax sale by 1 tax buyer and low and behold an attorney representing yet another tax buyer knocked on this person's door and say, hey, how would you like to keep your home? Of course, the person says, well, that's great. How do I do that? Hire us to file an identity claim. So then that tax buyer calls the other tax buyer lawyer and says, hey, they're going to file an identity claim. How about taking. In in you, letting these people stay in their home, you take whatever we get from the equity claim. And they do that these people work together. We're not talking about a large group of people and the tax buyers. They work together. They lobby together in Springfield. So. You know, it's not random chance that some of this stuff happens there. These people and they got the shared case. There there's going to be claims made. There's going to be claims made and I. You know, I just think it's better to prepare for it. Uh, you know, now, and then see, then what that does, that gives me flexibility. If I know that I've got something I can, I can negotiate from a position of strength and I can get rid of some of these claims. I'm very good at that. Uh, and then that helps us out that anything that I can do to shave a. A dollar or 2 off of something, I'll do it. And if I've got the flexibility to do that, and you give me that flexibility, it's going to work out. It's going to work out to the benefit. If we're in a position where we're not ready and the court just hands us a judgment, then I got no negotiating position at all. So, I mean, I think that that's I would like to be proactive. I think that we have tried very hard to be on the cutting edge of this and I want to stay that way. I think it's worked out to our benefit. We probably eliminate what 500,000 dollars in equity claims just by resolving the identity cases and getting the seal offs from the Tyler.

So, I have another question I know when Mary was here that she had us put money into that and done any fun. How much do we have in there today?

Uh, we don't it's. We're we're paid in fact, I've settled a couple of identity claims. Because I'm trying to as part of the settling the, they got a way they got to release their Tyler claim. So I'm trying to be a little aggressive on those. We've settled 2 or 3 of those. I don't imagine there's a lot of money. There's about 100 okay being told by the treasurer's office. There's 100 in there. Oh, 160, but didn't I just send out an order for for 1?

Yeah, so they're. Okay, I just knew we started 1 a while ago, so I was, and we didn't hear about these other situations till now. So, okay. Thank you.

Yeah. So, for the record, 160 was in, and there's a claim for 99,000, so 60,000 will be remaining. I don't know if anybody could hear that.

Uh, and I've got 2 or 3 open identity claims.

So. Okay. All right. Well, thank you. Everyone that participated in this information. Um, I'm sure the county board has some time to. To think about, um, the decision moving forward. So no other new business.

So the announcements by the chair, I would just say.

Thank you all for spending an extra day here at the county. We thought this was a very important meeting to understand. I know everybody can't make it on an extra day, but for the folks that are not here, if the caucuses could talk with the members that aren't here, kind of give them some background, let them know that the information was provided in the package, talk it over. I'm sure the trustees, the treasurer's office, the state's attorney's office, The chief of staff is all welcoming phone calls on this issue because I plan on bringing these resolutions to the executive committee next week. I feel like it's an urgent thing to try to hammer out. As you can understand from the presentation, so please do your due diligence before the executive. and uh the state's attorney and mr pelkey will be working on those resolutions and we'll get them out as soon as possible so thank you again everyone um and there is no need for executive session so i would like a motion to adjourn motion freeman seconded by winfrey all those in favor please say aye anyone opposed motion carries we are adjourned thank you see everybody tomorrow