St. Charles schools seek property tax increase

The St. Charles school board this week adopted a tentative plan to ask for 3.74 percent more in property taxes to support operations.

The levy request will be finalized at the Dec. 10 board meeting. The levy must be filed with the Kane County Clerk by Dec. 18. The taxes will be collected in 2013.

The district plans to ask for $136.14 million. Of that, $105.22 million would be for the education fund.

The operating fund levies — education, operations/maintenance, municipal retirement, Social Security/Medicare, tort immunity and special education — are limited this year to a 3 percent increase over last year’s taxes. The district is asking for more to cover its bases on collecting all it can, because the exact value of property in the district, including new properties, will not be determined by Kane County until the spring.

This does not include the property taxes to be levied to repay the district’s debt or for its working cash fund. Last year, it collected about $17.85 million for those purposes. Those taxes are not restricted by the state’s property tax cap law.

The district estimates that 74 percent of its revenue comes from property taxes.