Mt. Prospect board debates: Can we afford to cut tax levy?

Mount Prospect taxpayers will likely see an increase in the village's portion of the property tax bill - which amounts to a little more than 11 percent of the entire bill.

But that increase may be lower than the tentative one brought before the village board Tuesday.

On Tuesday, as part of the village board's ongoing budget discussions, Finance Director David Erb presented a proposed property tax levy of $18,066,360 for 2014, to be collected in 2015. It calls for a 4.42 percent property tax increase, meaning the owner of a home with a $350,000 market value would pay the village about $1,155 in 2015, up from $1,111 this year.

Trustee Paul Hoefert, however, continued to push for a lower tax increase to give something back to residents who recently have been paying more in fees to fund street repairs.

Erb said a zero increase means the village would need to find a way to come up with about $760,000, which is what 4.42 percent increase would raise.

Mayor Arlene Juracek dismissed the idea of no increase.

"It's virtually a foregone conclusion that we can't get down to a zero percent increase," she said, noting that some of the levy is beyond the village's control, such as debt service and police and fire pensions.

"What we're really talking about is the general portion of the levy," she said, referring to the $719,357 in added funds that would be raised for the village's general operations, including public works, police and fire.

Juracek said the discussion needs to turn on what kinds of reductions in services and personnel would occur without the additional money.

Trustee Michael Zadel said that while there could be benefits, there could also be a negative impact on the village operations.

"I think it's a slippery slope when we start talking about reducing the levy," he said.

Trustee Steven Polit said, "I think our residents need to understand that when you spend less money, it's impossible to provide the same service or the same number of services or the same quality of services."

The remainder of the more-than-three-hour meeting was devoted to the department budget presentations. Those presentations included village administration, which could see its budget increase from $2.9 million to $3.4 million, mostly to cover $283,000 in contractual services to move the village's website to the cloud; $131,000 to convert a part-time administrative intern position to a full-time analyst; and the addition of a network administrator, primarily to help the police department.