Posted inInvestigations

How We Reported on Cook County Assessment Errors

Reporters from Illinois Answers Project and the Chicago Tribune collected and analyzed thousands of points of data to track down where the Cook County assessor misclassified hundreds of properties.

by Alex Nitkin, A.D. Quig and Cam Rodriguez, The New York Times August 4, 2024August 4, 2024

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How We Reported on Cook County Assessment Errors

by Alex Nitkin, A.D. Quig and Cam Rodriguez, The New York Times, Illinois Answers Project
August 4, 2024

<h1>How We Reported on Cook County Assessment Errors</h1>
<p class="byline">by Alex Nitkin, A.D. Quig and Cam Rodriguez, The New York Times, Illinois Answers Project <br />August 4, 2024</p>
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The office of Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi on June 17, 2024. The Chicago Tribune and Illinois Answers Project set out to investigate the accuracy of property assessments in Cook County. (Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune)

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Alex NitkinGovernment Finance and Accountability Reporter

anitkin@illinoisanswers.org

Alex Nitkin is a government finance and accountability reporter conducting investigations on systemic problems and the public policies that are meant to fix them in Chicago, Cook County and Illinois government. Before joining Illinois Answers, he worked as a reporter and editor for The Daily Line covering Cook County and Chicago government. He previously worked at The Real Deal Chicago, where he covered local real estate news, and DNAinfo Chicago, where he worked as a breaking news reporter and then as a neighborhood reporter covering the city's Northwest Side. A New York native who grew up in Connecticut, Alex graduated Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism with a bachelor’s degree.

More by Alex Nitkin

A.D. Quig

ad-quig@example.com

A.D. Quig covers Cook County government, City Hall and the Obama Presidential Center. She joined the Tribune in 2022 after covering politics for Crain’s Chicago Business and The Daily Line.

More by A.D. Quig