ALDERMAN ED BURKE AND PROPERTY TAX APPEALS: YOU’VE GOT A FRIEND?

10/7/13

Today’s (i.e., Monday, 10/7/13’s, page 12) Chicago Sun-Times ran an article by Tim Novak entitled “Ald. Burke’s Tax Victories Costing City Hall Millions,” in which Mr. Novak reveals that Alderman Ed Burke’s law firm, Klafter & Burke, has won $18.1 million in property tax refunds for clients since 2003.   Those taxes would have gone to several taxing bodies, including Cook County and the Chicago Public Schools; only 20% would have gone to the city of Chicago.  So, doing the arithmetic, Mr. Novak argues that the refunds Klafter & Burke have won have cost the city about $3.6 million, or 20% of $18.1 million, rounded.

This analysis is fine as far as it goes, but is flawed by one perhaps fatal assumption, i.e., that Mr. Burke’s clients would not have won their property tax appeals, and resultant refunds, had they not availed themselves of the legal services of Mr. Burke and his opponents.

I’m not a lawyer, and I don’t know much more than I read in the papers.  But property tax lawyers have told me that many of these appeals are relatively routine and that the same, or nearly the same, results could have been reached by any reasonably competent lawyer well versed in property taxes.

No, I’m not being naïve here and I am not exonerating politicians like Ed Burke (and Mike Madigan and John Cullerton, mentioned in a side article) who make a lot of money ostensibly opposing the very governmental bodies in which they, to say the least, wield great influence.  Indeed, if we accept that the likelihood of success in a property tax appeal is not greatly enhanced by hiring a politically connected law firm, the implications may be even more malodorous for the likes of Messrs. Burke, Madigan, and Cullerton.

Say you are a property owner, maybe small, maybe big, but, in any case, looking to curry favor with the powers that be in the city of Chicago and its environs.   You want to appeal a property tax bill.  You can hire Joe Dokes and Associates or you can hire Klafter & Burke.  The likelihood of victory is at least as good with Klafter & Burke as it is with Dokes and Associate.  Whom do you hire? 

The answer, of course, is obvious and, while it might have something to do with the perception, right or wrong, that Klafter & Burke has a better chance of winning due to its clout, it has more to do with the desire to curry favor with the likes of Ed Burke for other matters that might come up between you and the city and/or its kindred government bodies.  

Simply put, if I hire Dokes and Associates, I probably win my appeal.  If I hire a firm that has as one of its partners a prominent Chicago politician, I probably win my appeal AND I have made a contact, a business associate, and possibly a friend of someone who can help me with matters that transcend property taxes.

Even more simply put, I can’t outright bribe a politician, even in Chicago.   But I can hire him or her to do my legal, real estate, or insurance work.   Why do you suppose so many politicians around here, or anywhere, go into the law, real estate, or insurance?  A real cynic might say they choose those professions because they are perhaps more respectable, and more lucrative, than the saloon keeping profession of the legendary mid-20^th century 43^rd Ward Alderman Paddy “Chicago ain’t ready for a reform mayor” Bauler and many of his contemporaries.  (By the way, that was Mr. Bauler’s actual quote on election night, 1955, when Richard J. Daley defeated Robert Merriam to replace Martin Kennelly as Chicago mayor; it wasn’t “Chicago ain’t ready for reform yet.”  But I digress.)

See my two books, The Chairman, A Novel of Big City Politics and The Chairman’s Challenge, A Continuing Novel of Big City Politics, for further illumination on how things work in Chicago and Illinois politics.