Cook County Treasurers Office

Maria Pappas has served as Cook County Treasurer since 1998. She has led the Treasurers Office through a series of transformative technological, automation and modernization advancements. Treasurer Pappas oversees the second-largest property tax collection and distribution system in the United States. She is responsible for printing and mailing bills to owners of more than 1.8 million parcels, collecting more than $17 billion in taxes and distributing those funds to more than 2,200 local units of government. During her tenure she has reduced staff from 250 employees in 1998 to 59 employees in 2023. She introduced online payments, established payment facilities at numerous banks across Cook County, and developed a system to identify and refund overpayments to taxpayers without extensive paperwork. Pappas has been a champion of transparency, introducing the Debt Disclosure Ordinance to provide taxpayers with detailed information about local government spending. She has conducted o...