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Schillerstrom now appealing tax cases to board members he appointed
Robert Schillerstrom served as the elected chairman of the DuPage County Board for 12 years. Now he's a lawyer who files property tax appeals before the three-member DuPage Board of Review — each of whom he appointed or re-appointed. | Rich Hein~Sun-Tim
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Updated: December 10, 2012 1:55AM
The three members of the DuPage County Board of Review — a government panel that handles property tax appeals from home and business owners — were appointed or reappointed by Robert Schillerstrom during his 12-year stint as DuPage County Board chairman.
Now a lawyer in private practice, Schillerstrom’s income depends on decisions made by those same people — raising conflict-of-interest questions on both sides of the equation, the Better Government Association found.
Schillerstrom left his elected post in 2010 after an unsuccessful Republican bid for governor. The next year he launched a property tax appeals practice for his Indianapolis-based law firm, Ice Miller LLP. The practice is based in Lisle and focuses, in part, on tax appeals before the DuPage Board of Review.
He’s had success, winning nearly all of his cases and getting tax breaks for his clients that in many instances exceeded the countywide average, a BGA analysis found.
There is no restriction preventing Schillerstrom from doing business through the Board of Review, according to the DuPage County state’s attorney’s office.
Schillerstrom, county board chairman from 1998 to 2010, said good lawyering, not politics, is behind his success.
“I do it the right way and I’m good at it,” he says.
Schillerstrom, 60, is following something of a tradition in the world of Chicago area politics.
Powerful political figures such as House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago) and Ald. Edward Burke (14th) also are attorneys who work on property tax appeals on the side.
Over the past year or so, Schillerstrom filed appeals on behalf of 15 commercial and residential property owners in DuPage, winning a reduction in all but one of the cases, according to county data.
On the residential appeals side, the taxable value of his clients’ properties declined by an average of 22.5 percent, compared with 15.3 percent for all other homeowners. On the commercial side, his clients’ average reduction was 20.1 percent, compared with 19.65 percent for all other owners of commercial, industrial and multifamily properties, according to the analysis. ~.
