Jason Grotto
Jason Grotto is a former reporter for ProPublica Illinois, where he covered issues related to municipal finance, including pensions, debt and taxation.
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Born and raised in Chicago, former ProPublica Illinois reporter Jason Grotto specializes in quantitative analysis, using databases, statistics and mapping to ferret out corruption, negligence and bad public policy. Previously, he worked as an investigative reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the Miami Herald. His project exposing widespread inaccuracies and disparities in Cook County’s property tax assessment system was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for local reporting and received the Gerald Loeb Award for local reporting in 2018. He has also reported on the pension crisis in Chicago and Illinois and led another Gerald Loeb Award-winning investigation on Chicago Public Schools’ disastrous use of auction-rate securities. He has uncovered fraud in federal poverty programs, problems in Iraq war contracting and flaws in the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation.
He was a 2015 Nieman Fellow at Harvard University, where he studied municipal finance. Other honors include a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award, an Investigative Reporters and Editors Award and the Society of Environmental Journalists Award. He earned a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri in 2000 and a bachelor’s in U.S. history from the University of Oregon in 1995.
Watchdog Group Calls for Reform to Cook County Assessor’s Office
Pressure continues to mount for greater transparency and oversight of the office.
Lawsuit Targets Berrios Over Unfair, Error-Riddled Assessments
Attorneys are asking a judge to force Berrios to adopt reforms and are seeking a monitor to oversee the process.
I Spent Years Reporting on Chicago’s Property Tax System. Here’s What Got Me Out of the Weeds.
Behind all the technical terms and the statistics is a story about the simple concept of fairness.
How the Cook County Assessor Failed Taxpayers
Joseph Berrios' error-ridden commercial and industrial assessments punish property owners, benefit lawyers.
How We Analyzed Commercial and Industrial Property Assessments in Chicago and Cook County
An in-depth analysis of hundreds of thousands of property tax records under Cook County Assessor Joseph Berrios.
Cook County Assessor: Office Cuts Make It Tough to Get Tax Bills Out On Time
Embattled assessor Joseph Berrios said he has already saved the county millions.
Cook County Assessor Faces Questions About Property Tax Inequity
After reporting showed that Cook County’s property tax assessments punish the poor and reward the rich, Assessor Joseph Berrios is called before a public board to explain.