Kane County homeowners paying more taxes to schools in 2015

With the average Kane County tax bill increasing 4.55 percent this year, county board members wanted to know Thursday who is picking up the tab for the $1.25 billion that will be collected this year.

The top 10 taxpayers in the county this year are, once again, all large businesses. But their contributions only account for about $25.8 million of the overall taxes that will be collected.

Kane County Treasurer David Rickert showed the board's public service committee a chart demonstrating nearly 75 percent of the tax money collected will come from residential property owners. Another 15 percent will come from commercial property. And the third-biggest chunk is the nearly 9 percent industrial property owners will pay.

The county must move toward reducing that burden on homeowners, said board member Phil Lewis. He wants to see commercial and industrial properties shoulder more of the tax load.

Rickert said he had not studied any trends in the regard. However, retail growth is key for reducing the overall need for property taxes because shops also generate sales tax.

"If I had to pick between a Walmart or a bunch of residential housing going in the same location, the property taxes may be more or less similar," he said. "But Walmart is going to generate a ton of retail sales tax. You have to look at the taxes in aggregate to make a determination as far as tax burden and how it's spread."

Rickert said the Tri-Cities portion of the county has done a better job than other areas in spreading the tax burden because the communities focused on creating a retail hub along Randall Road that has been very successful in generating sales tax. The Tri-Cities is also seeing a faster recovery from the housing bubble burst, Rickert said. They saw the bulk of foreclosure problems in 2007 and 2008, whereas the Elgin and Aurora markets still have many properties going through foreclosures, he said.

"The Elgin area continues to see a significant decline in housing value, where the Tri-Cities seemed to hold their values a little better," Rickert said. "They are probably in a much better position to recover than the Elgin and Aurora markets."

On the other side of the tax ledger, schools will receive 69.1 percent of the property taxes collected. That works out to about $862 million for Kane County schools.