Naperville expects small decline in city property taxes

Property tax bills across DuPage County are expected to jump on average about 5.7 percent this year, but Naperville residents won’t be seeing any increase on the city portion of their bills.

Officials said Naperville’s equalized assessed valuation has declined 5.44 percent to $6.718 billion, slightly more than the 5 percent decline the city expected. That decline means the city’s portion of this spring’s property tax bills will drop between $20 and $25 for the average homeowner.

“Given that we were expecting an EAV decline of 5 percent we expected the tax rate was going to be .7358 and those were the budget assumptions we’ve been working with up until this particular time,” Finance Director Karen DeAngelis said. “The actual EAV is pretty close to our assumption. It’s a decline of 5.44 percent so the resulting tax rate is an actual rate of .7390. It’s only a third of a penny different from the estimated rate that we had been talking about.”

Taxing bodies ask for specific amounts of tax dollars each year. Since 1991, the state-imposed property tax cap limits most of those governments to increases of 5 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower.

But the Consumer Price Index rose significantly from 0.1 percent in 2009 to 2.7 percent in 2010. And taxing districts throughout DuPage sought more money through their levies, officials said. When the total tax take is distributed among fewer taxpayers, the increase most individuals will see is greater.

Residents can expect their property tax bills to arrive about May 1. Payments are due in June and September. School districts take up most of the tax bill — 72.6 percent. Municipalities comprise 10.2 percent.

Local governments have until March 30 to lower their rates by abating taxes. But county officials are expecting minimal changes to the tentative numbers.