Chicago Tribune

The Cook County property tax bills due March 1 list the staggering shortfalls in local government employee pension and health care funds, the Chicago Tribune writes in an editorial. “This year there’s more to madden taxpayers.”

Property owner can visit cookcountytreasurer.com to see the numbers of active employees paying into a particular pension fund, and the number of retirees depending on that fund, for each Cook County taxing body.

“It has to become alarming to the person who gets the tax bill,” Treasurer Maria Pappas says of the new data. “We’re trying to set off the discussion to ‘Joe Average’ who gets his tax bill and says, ‘Wait a minute.’”

Read the editorial.