East Dundee raises property tax levy
With some objection, the East Dundee village board voted to raise the 2012 tax levy by no more than 4.5 percent.
But once trustees know the equalized assessed valuation figure from Kane County in about a month, the board’s intention is to make good on its promise to lower the levy to 1.5 percent.
For the owner of a $200,000 house, the new rate works out to an increase of about $6.08 per year if equalized assessed valuation stays the same. The tax hike would generate $347,000 over the next 15 years for the village’s general fund.
The vote was met with a bit of controversy.
Trustee Allen Skillicorn, also a member of the Dundee Area Tea Party, has argued that the village should lessen the burden on the taxpayers by freezing the levy.
“Even though this is a small amount of money, small victories create hope,” Skillicorn said.
Last week, he started circulating a petition against the levy hike that has so far garnered about 90 signatures. On Monday, he also ran a phone poll of the roughly 1,200 registered voters in the village which showed 85 percent of the responders were against raising the property tax levy.
Skillicorn did not have information on the number of people actually responded to the poll, but did say the poll has an error margin of plus or minus 8 percent.
Trustee Rob Gorman, who voted for the levy hike, said the poll question was misleading because it did not disclose the potential financial impact of the levy hike — $3.04 a year for someone who owns a $100,000 home and $6.08 for someone who has a $200,000 home.
Gorman suspects the responders would have answered differently if they knew those values.
“You have to provide the information to get a valid poll,” Gorman told Skillicorn. “That is an invalid poll, in my opinion.”
Skillicorn said those figures aren’t set in stone, and he didn’t want to provide inaccurate figures.
Trustee Jeff Lynam also voted against the levy hike and said the village should instead pay more attention to the impact that funding the police pension has on its bottom line.