Schaumburg looks to lower property tax levy

Following through on a promise to make reliance on property taxes a last resort, Schaumburg officials are planning to reduce the village's levy by 4.4 percent in the tax's second year.

The village board is expected to concur Tuesday with the recommended reduction from the village manager and finance committee.

Village Manager Ken Fritz said Schaumburg's property tax was intended from the start last year to be nothing more than a means of making up for shortfalls in other revenue streams.

And some of those revenues - particularly sales and hotel taxes - showed improvement in 2010.

"The village's position all along has been to look at the other revenue sources," Fritz said.

Further cost reductions this year also have played a part, including the official elimination of 23 vacant positions, he added.

"We're certainly moving in the right direction," Mayor Al Larson said. "We'd like to move even more in that direction. I think there were some cynics last year who were suggesting that (the property tax) would go up by 15 percent."

Schaumburg's ability to avoid a property tax from its incorporation in 1956 had long been a point of pride for village officials. But the impact of the longest, deepest recession since World War II was too great for the village to hold out any longer than it did, Larson said.

The original 2009 levy was for approximately $23.7 million. The proposed 2010 levy is just under $22.7 million.

"Our goal is to reach a point when we will no longer have to have a property tax, but I'm not making any bold, brash predictions," Larson said.

The village board will vote to set its tentative levy Tuesday. The first reading of the levy ordinance will then take place Oct. 12, followed by a final vote Nov. 9.