The Illinois Federation of Teachers sued Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas Monday to try to force her to mail property tax bills and compensate school districts for recent revenue delays.
The suit was filed in Cook County Circuit Court on behalf of the estimated 50,000 Cook County members of the state Federation of Teachers, including the Chicago Teachers Union and union members across the suburbs. It asks a judge to order Pappas to act “so that families and students in the City and the County will receive the education they have paid for and deserve.”
It’s part of the CTU’s broader push for more funding as Chicago Public Schools feverishly works to pass a budget before the end of the month or risk missing the September payroll and the opportunity to borrow money short term.
While the suit adds pressure, it’s unclear whether it can or will move the needle to get bills out the door faster. Pappas has steadfastly insisted the delays are occurring upstream of her office, and there’s little she can do to move more quickly.
Pappas’ office did not comment on the suit, but did say in a written statement that it anticipates sending CPS a chunk of money this week. The district has said it needs $85 million to avert implementing furlough days.
The years-long upgrade of the county’s property tax system has led to cascading pileups, but few easy fixes. County leaders and its lead contractor, Tyler Technologies, say they’ve been working overtime to address ongoing defects to pay taxing bodies what they’re owed. County leaders are simultaneously playing catch up from last year’s problems in order to get bills out the door by Sept. 1, with some optimism they could land sooner. In a typical cycle, bills are sent July 1 with an Aug. 1 due date.
“State law has specific deadlines in it for sending the bills and distributing the money, and the state law doesn’t really give the treasurer any discretion with respect to distributing the money,” CTU attorney Stephen Yokich told the Tribune Monday.
“It’s not their money, it’s the money of the units of local government and the school districts,” he said of the treasurer. That funding is desperately needed so schools can start the year with “their full complement of people and programs.”
If the system upgrade is a multicar pileup still being cleared, local governments and individual taxpayers are stuck in the traffic slowdown.
Some schools and library districts, for example, are still waiting for final revenue from bills that were paid this spring. Meanwhile, roughly 75,000 individual taxpayers are due refunds and a few thousand are still waiting for bills from the last two cycles.
Throughout, Pappas has lashed out at Tyler and pushed through workarounds to get money out the door, including manual direct deposits to local governments around Christmastime and using AI to help work through the refund backlog.
The lawsuit attempts to force the treasurer to pay out all the revenues the office collected from March bills and “immediately prepare and mail” this year’s second bills.
As part of its relief, the unions ask that the county compensate taxing districts that had to spend money to cover the cash shortfalls caused by property tax problems in recent cycles.
“Families deserve to know that elected officials at every level of government are doing their jobs,” Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, said in a release. “And for the Cook County Treasurer, that means distributing the funds her office is charged with collecting for school districts, not sitting on them.”
Stacy Davis Gates, president of the Chicago Teachers Union and the Illinois Federation of Teachers, attends the Rainbow PUSH Coalition’s annual convention on June 10, 2026. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
The cash-strapped Chicago school district estimates it spent $40 million in interest because it had to borrow during the delay. Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is accepting loan applications now to float some taxing districts until property tax money comes in later this fall and is considering adding CPS.
Preckwinkle spokesperson Hanna Fierle said Monday their “intention is to make sure these smaller taxing bodies have initial access to the bridge fund, but we are open to working with CPS if funds are still available.”
Pappas cannot mail bills until her colleagues in other property tax offices finish their work. It’s currently Cook County Clerk Monica Gordon’s turn. Her office comes up with tax rates before Pappas’ team performs final calculations and sends out the bills. Money typically starts flowing to districts a couple of weeks after property owners pay up.
“We intend to post tax bills on the Treasurer’s website once we have the billing file and verify the numbers are correct,” Pappas’ office said.
The treasurer has held back about $400 million from the last tax cycle because the office and Tyler still need to reconcile over- and underpayments to taxing districts from previous cycles. CPS estimates the district is still owed $250 million from March bills. The treasurer’s office said that figure is far lower — closer to $70 million or $80 million.
“We continue to work with Tyler on reconciliation,” Pappas’ office said in the statement. “We anticipate distributing this week to CPS a significant portion of the $70-80 million.”
Though Pappas relies on other county officials to get accurate bills out the door, her office is the only named defendant because it holds the purse strings and is the sole office with a hard deadline to meet in state statute, Yokich said.
A month’s delay adds up to several million dollars lost, he said. “Every day is money that goes down the drain completely that CPS will never be able to use to pay teachers and provide services and make sure students get their education.”
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