Schaumburg closer to village's first property tax

Schaumburg trustees Tuesday voted 4-0 to approve a preliminary levy of $23.7 million for the village's first municipal property tax.

While the action doesn't make the controversial tax inevitable, it paves the way for a public hearing on the matter at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 15 at village hall, 101 Schaumburg Court.

Officials expect a final vote to be taken at 8 p.m. Dec. 22, five days before the county deadline for the year ahead.

Some residents at Tuesday's meeting had barely a week to get their heads around the fact that their hometown, which prided itself on not having a municipal property tax for 53 years, was suddenly taking a new direction.

But officials claim they have no choice. Other taxes, which have allowed the village to subsist on consumer spending for decades, have come up short through the recession of the past several years.

Village Manager Ken Fritz said Schaumburg's general fund could run out of money in a year if the economy doesn't improve and the village itself doesn't make a change.

In fact, some short-term borrowing and transfer of money among funds may be needed before the village could collect its first property tax revenue in late 2010.

One of the plans for the additional money will be to spend $8.5 million on delayed road maintenance projects.

Fritz explained that road costs will only go up if allowed to wait any longer.

While residents were quick to react to the tax last week, the village's businesses have remained quiet as they've begun analyzing the impact.

Trustee Jack Sullivan explained his vote against the tax last week and why he's changed his mind. He'd originally hoped there'd be more time to discuss other options.

"I forgot all about that deadline," Sullivan said. "I did not realize that we had such a small amount of time to work with. If we wait we'll be sorry, so we have to do it now."

Trustees Mark Madej and Frank Kozak were absent for Tuesday's vote.

Resident Brian Costin asked the board to put a one-year expiration on the property tax so that a spring 2011 referendum could put the question of its future to the public.

But Trustee Marge Connelly explained that the question of whether to levy a property tax is one every local government inevitably faces every year.

Officials have said that, for some residents at least, the property tax increase will be a near break-even when exchanged for the vehicle stickers the village will be dropping and the garbage pickup fees the village will be paying itself starting in 2011.

The owner of a median-priced, $250,000 home in Schaumburg would pay $252 to the village in property taxes - or 8 percent of his or her overall property tax bill - the village estimates.

The owner of such a home pays $170 for garbage pickup now, and pays $20 apiece for vehicle stickers.