Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas announced today that 1,336,275 property owners paid $2,944,425,280 in property taxes in the collection period from January 29 through March 1.

The figures were increases over the comparable collection period last year, when 1,313,609 property owners paid $2,772,122,280.

Pappas noted that 197,404 persons paid their taxes at LaSalle Bank branches, compared to 138,846 in the comparable collection period last year. Payments at LaSalle, which has 120 branches in the Chicago area, are approaching double the 109,877 payments recorded when Pappas began the program in 1999.

Meanwhile, payments at the Treasurer's satellite offices (Bridgeview, Markham, Maywood, Rolling Meadows and Skokie) fell from 129,252 to 99,151.

"Our homeowners and business people are to be congratulated and thanked for meeting their obligations as citizens," Pappas said. "It appears that making it possible to pay at a local LaSalle bank is proving attractive for more people."

Cook County has 1.55 million pieces of taxable property. The Treasurer's Office normally expects 1.2 million payments to be made during such a collection period, with the remainder coming in later to be paid with penalties.

Cook County property taxes are paid in a given year for the previous year, in two collection periods of one month each. In the first collection period, half of the previous year's taxes are paid. In the second period, reassessments of property and senior citizen and homeowner exemptions are factored in. The county's next collection period will be this fall.