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West Dundee raises tax levy, citing police, fire pensions

Editor’s note: This story has been corrected to say that the West Dundee Fire Department will receive a portion of the funds from the tax levy hike to pay for pensions.

Pointing to an anticipated increase in pensions for both police officers and firefighters, West Dundee officials raised their property tax levy by 4.95 percent Monday.

The increase would generate $3.32 million for the village, which amounts to an increase of $156,695 over last year’s levy, records show. The impact on a taxpayer with a $200,000 home will be an additional $54, according to village documents.

All but $229 of the $156,695 increase would be routed to the West Dundee Fire Department and the West Dundee Police Department to pay for pensions — an extra $97,733 would go to the police department while the fire department would receive an additional $58,733.

All told, $724,199 from the $3.32 million levy is reserved for police and fire pensions. The rest of it would cover the village’s general, capital, health care and municipal workers’ retirement funds.

“It has everything to do with the police and fire pensions,” Village President Chris Nelson said of the increase. “In 2013, we didn’t take on any additional equalized assessed value or sales tax generators that could have offset that increase and so we had to turn to the levy. Obviously, we had to find extra funds and the levy is one mechanism to do that.”

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