St. Charles schools eye 1.5 percent property tax increase

With a potential state-imposed property tax freeze threatening to gut millions of dollars out of St. Charles Unit District 303 coffers next year, school board members moved toward locking in a 1.5 percent tax levy increase Thursday night.

The pending increase is less than the 2 percent hike the board approved last year. Still, the owner of an average $300,000 home in the district would pay $6,241 to St. Charles schools via their 2017 tax bills under the plan.

The full school board must still vote on the levy, but none of the four school board members at Thursday's presentation spoke against the plan. In part, that's because district administrators pushed for the board to levy for less than they are legally allowed to take without a referendum. The levy increase could have been more than 2 percent. But the plan also calls for a tax abatement for the fourth straight year. The abatement would be a separate vote from the tax levy. It wouldn't come until March. If board members stick to the plan, about $578,000 would be abated. That would bring the four-year total of abatements to more than $6 million returned to taxpayers.

The final tax levy vote would come this December. Taxpayers and the full board will get a chance to comment in the interim.

There are two big-picture financial levers factoring into the 1.5 percent tax increase and the will to approve a fourth year of abatements.

District staff said they believe state lawmakers will approve some form of a property tax freeze next year. That would result in the district losing $2.4 million of revenue in 2016 and $4.2 million in 2017.

That lost money would be a reason to forego the abatement and raise the tax levy more than 2 percent.

Superintendent Don Schlomann advised the board to go ahead with the abatement and collect less money.

"I think it holds the board's commitment to trying to reduce rather than trying to push a little bit more money into the system before the freeze," Schlomann. "I think it would be disingenuous."

That's one win for taxpayers who want the lowest tax bill possible. The second win in that regard will come in 2017, when the district will retire some debt, and the portion of the district's tax levy that pays off bonds will shrink, as will the district's overall tax rate. St. Charles schools already have the lowest tax rate of any school district in the area. When the bonds are retired, the owner of a $300,000 home will see her tax bill drop by about $550.