The 2018-19 tax levy request was approved by the District 205 Board of Education at Monday night’s meeting.
Jennifer Hamm, the district’s Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations told the board that the district was requesting $21,577,774 million dollars from the levy, but is only anticipating $21,227,627.
Hamm told the board that depending on what the districts equalized assess value comes in at, will determine the total the district will receive, and the resulting tax rate.
Currently, the district is anticipating an EAV of $428,728,183, resulting in the $21.2M anticipated levy.
Hamm said that the district always asks for more on the levy request to capture any unexpected increases in the EAV.
Board member Wayne Statham said he’d vote against the tax levy because, despite the district’s tax rate remaining the same, the equalized assessed value of the district rose, which will lead to a higher tax bill for property owners.
“The person who gets his tax bill, opens it up this year, and compares it to last year… it’s higher. That’s a tax increase,” Statham said. “If I tell that I’m going to charge you more per hour this year than I did last year, you’re going to say, ‘your rates went up.’ Then if I tell you, ‘well no, other things changed.’ You’re going to say, ‘no, your rate went up.'”
Statham requested that the district bring back a level levy and present that to the board.
Assistant Superintendent Hamm warned that, with a level levy, the district would be defect spending.
