ROCHELLE — A local township assessor is hanging his hat at the end of this month and although property owners may have never met Bob Elliott, more than likely they recognize his name.
Elliott has been the Flagg Township Assessor for the last 14 years, overseeing roughly 5,500 properties including farms and industries. The staff held a retirement open house Tuesday.
“I’ll be volunteering more, might dig in the garden, piddle in the yard,” Elliott happily explained his retirement plans. “There’s lots to do around the house…maybe take some short trips with my wife.”
Along with gardening, Elliott enjoys golfing and spending time with his church.
Shortly before the last consolidated election in April, Elliott made the decision not to file for reelection. His last day is Dec. 31.
Previous to his assessor position, Elliott worked for Del Monte for 35 years, followed with Quinn’s Jewelry for six years.
Role of assessor
Since stepping foot in the assessor’s office 16 years ago, Elliott said there have been a few changes. For the first two years Elliott’s duties consisted of fieldwork, visiting properties and taking pictures.
Elliott was then appointed acting assessor while taking the five classes to be certified after the retirement of his predecessor.
“When I first started we had one computer…one person entered the information that was figured by hand,” Elliott said. “After I settled in, we upgraded to two computers with the software programs. I could punch buttons in the computer but I like doing it on paper. I can see it…much easier to see what’s going on and be able to better tell what’s happening.”

As assessor Elliott’s main role is to place a fair market value on properties for taxing purposes. Comparable to an appraiser, Elliott verifies property information and with state-defined numbers matched with square footage of a house, building, or land, a value is determined. It is then assessed at one-third of the market value.
Elliott can use information to determine a property’s value, such as a permit or even cross checking MLS listings when a property is on the market.
There are times that a property owner does not obtain the necessary permits but it is usually found during visual property inspections, which are done every four years. Elliott explained Flagg Township is divided into four sections and each year one is inspected.
“We drive from place to place, walk, take pictures, verify information we have on the cards is correct, except if it comes to a finished basement,” Elliott explained. “I’ll go online when I know houses are for sale, print off the info…that’s where we get a lot of our info. We can see what the realtor posts and compare it to our cards. It’s amazing sometimes what we find.”

Housing boom
In his early years as assessor Elliott acknowledged many of the challenges were from people protesting assessments, some ending up before the county board of review.
“I learned a lot doing that the first couple, three, four years,” Elliott recalled.
Most rewarding is when people return to his office to thank him for all he does. Elliott pointed to one of the last remaining signs on his office wall, most of them already packed for his retirement.
“Like the sign says, my job is secure…nobody else wants it,” Elliott chuckled. “You have to be fairly tough skinned. Some people come in mad or pretty angry.”
Early in his position in the midst of the housing boom, Elliott’s days were busy with new construction until the market slump in 2008. After that time his office fielded many complaints.
“In the first part of that crash we were having problems getting things adjusted back down, people were doing a lot of complaining but we worked our way through it,” Elliott said. “We think we’ve seen the bottom and now we are starting to go back up again.”

Assessment
Although Elliott is retiring, he shared some useful information and encouraged property owners to pick up a brochure at the assessor’s office located in the township building on Ill. Rte. 38.  It lists information on how bills are calculated, what types of exemptions are available to homeowners, and what can be done if there is a disagreement.
Property taxes are used to provide valuable services such as police and fire protection, schools, libraries, parks and recreation, and the roads and street landscaping and lighting. Boards of varying taxing bodies decide any tax levies.
Elliott said several years ago one of the taxing entities increased 132 percent, resulting in complaints from property owners of their taxes being too high.
“There are two columns, one is the present tax rate and one is the previous tax rate. Compare the two to see which ones change,” Elliott said. “Look at this year versus the previous tax year. You may need to talk to those boards.”
Elliott and wife, Carol, have two children and three grandchildren.