Carpentersville won’t raise taxes 24%

I am very disappointed in the inflammatory and misleading headline and story report provided in a recent Daily Herald. The Village of Carpentersville was following state law by providing information about our upcoming tax levy.

The law requires that we compare last year’s levy with abatements to this year’s levy without abatements. Abatements are moneys that the village uses to reduce property taxes. After we apply all available abatements, the village will be asking for the same amount of money as we have received since 2008 in our general fund levy. This will be a 0 percent increase in taxes collected.

At three different times during our discussion the fact above were presented, but the headline and article proclaimed that a 24-percent increase was being proposed. This is only true in the mind of someone in Springfield who created this misleading format for presenting our levy proposal.

Many people are experiencing fluctuations in their tax assessments so our tax rate will fluctuate as well. But the bottom line is that the amount of money that will be collected will remain the same.

Ed Ritter

Village President

Carpentersville