NEWS…

From… Kari K. Steele for Assessor

For Immediate Release                                               Contact:

17 June 2022                                                               David Ormsby, 312-342-9638

                                                                                    davidormsby@davidormsby.com

Kaegi’s Top Staff Break Law on Cook County Residency Rules

Steele: Kaegi Employees Should Move or Be Fired

(Chicago) – At least two of Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s senior officials have broken the law on the County's residency requirements for employees, which mandates that employees live in Cook County.

According to property and voter registration records, Martin Paulson, Kaegi’s Deputy Assessor & Chief Valuations Officer, and Craig Dovel, the Assessor’s Director of Special Projects, live in Lake County and DuPage County, respectively.  

Paulson, a former longtime Lake County Assessor who earns $156,000 as a top Kaegi aide, highlights on his own Linkedin profile that he has worked for the Assessor since January 2020 and lives in suburban Wadsworth, which is part of Lake County. Paulson’s voter file confirms the address. He has also taken a homeowner’s exemption at the Wadsworth address.

Dovel, who earns $120,000 at Cook County Assessor’s office since taking the post in November 2020, lives in DuPage County’s West Chicago. He has taken a homeowner’s exemption on the West Chicago property, but his voter registration lists him as a voter in DuPage’s City of Elmhurst.

“Fritz Kaegi thinks he and his office can flagrantly and routinely break the law with impunity,” said Kari Steele, Kaegi’s Democratic primary opponent. “Whether it is Kaegi brazenly breaking state law on refusing to respond to citizens’ Freedom of Information Act requests on time or his employees thumbing their nose at the legal requirement to live in Cook County, Kaegi and his office’s routine habit of breaking the law is a disgrace.”

Move or be fired.

“Martin Paulson and Craig Dovel should comply with the legal requirements for their taxpayer-paid jobs and either move into to Cook County or, if they refuse, they should be fired,” said Steele. “Fritz Kaegi has shown himself completely incapable of competently executing the basics of the Assessor’s job whether it’s following the law on employee residency requirements, answering Freedom of Information Act requests within the legally required five-days or getting tax bills out time. Kaegi needs to be held accountable.”

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