The District 233 school board reviewed its proposed 2020 levy that shows an increase of $917,748.
The $40.8 million levy holds to the state tax cap law and follows the Consumer Price Index of 2.3%, according to Lawrence Cook, the district’s business manager, who addressed members at the regular board meeting on Nov. 17.
“Any additional dollars above the 2.3% will be a direct result of new property growth within the district’s property tax base,” he said in a memo to the board. He estimated new property at $1.5 million. The total rate for the levy is estimated at 5.9%.
The levy tells the Cook County Clerk’s Office how much money District 233 is asking to have collected from property owners. The major chunk –approximately $33 million – goes to pay salaries, benefits, supplies and equipment. Another $1.2 million pays contributions to social security and the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund for staff not covered by the Teachers Retirement System of the State of Illinois.
In August, the District 233 board adopted a $58.15 million budget for school year 2020-21.
Cook said H-F gets 62% of its funding through property taxes, 27% from state support through the Evidence Based Funding program, 4% from state grants, 1% from federal grants and the remaining 4% from local sources.
The board is expected to give final approval to the levy at its Dec. 15 meeting.
When Cook reviewed the numbers with the board’s Finance Committee on Nov. 10, he said he looked at the past five years of revenue collection. In 2013, the high school collected taxes at a 95% rate. That dropped to 92% in 2018 when District 233 lost about $2 million on appeal. Cook said the majority of that revenue loss was from an appeal from the shuttered Brunswick Bowl in Homewood.
In 2020, collection dropped to 90.42%, again due to tax appeals. Cook said he believes that drop was due to Meijer in Flossmoor appealing its taxes.
Cook said the equalized assessed valuation (EAV) of property is a guesstimate because final numbers aren’t available. The South Suburbs are reassessed this year. Cook used the $690 million number from the previous year.
Rob Grossi, Bloom township school treasurer, told the committee the Cook County Assessor’s Office is currently reassessing property putting a higher burden on commercial property. He said due to those adjustments, appeals of new tax rates are likely.
Grossi noted H-F doesn’t have a big commercial/industrial tax base, but he said some homeowners with tax bills over $30,000 are appealing, and that too is affecting the collection rate.
And, there’s the added burden of some property owners who aren’t paying taxes, he said.
Cook also reported that a mistake by Cook County will mean an additional tax abatement this coming year.
H-F received several grants from the Illinois State Board of Education. In accepting those grants, the board agreed to abate taxes. The county clerk’s office acknowledges staff made a mistake when it set the 2019 levy and failed to put all of the tax breaks on the books.
At the board’s Tuesday meeting Cook said District 233 received additional state monies the past few years and the board intended to abate those amounts.
The state put in place an Evidence-Based Funding Formula. It comprehensively changed the way Illinois funds schools by providing more money to under-resourced school districts. It shifts payments from a general dollar amount per student to a formula that takes into account the percent of taxes funding local schools.
With that change, the state also attempted to level the tax burden between wealthy and poorer school districts. It set up the Property Tax Relief Program to help meet the new funding formula. H-F was classified as a property tax heavy district and qualified for the tax relief program.
The first year, the state grant to District 233 was $1.3 million, and the school board decided to abate taxes by that amount. The second year, the district received $1.8 million, but the state stipulated that the district would have to abate taxes for two years by that amount to receive the money. H-F agreed to do that.
But on the 2019 levy, the county only abated the first $1.8 million.
On the proposed 2020 levy the district is asking the county to abate the $1.3 million it missed, and the second $1.8 million the district agreed to abate.
Before the board’s next meeting Dec. 15, the Finance Committee will consider whether to abate an additional $1.3 million because the amount didn’t get recorded as initially planned.
Cook said he expects the state’s future tax relief support “will remain flat.”