Geneva parks borrow $1.4M to make improvements

The Geneva Park District has borrowed $1.4 million for projects at its parks, at about half the interest rate the last time it did so.

The district sold the bonds to Harris Bank at 1.4 percent interest.

District taxpayers will repay the loan over two years, including $29,366 in interest.

“We will be able to do more projects because it will cost less” than the previous loan, which was at 2.95 percent, said Christy Powell, the district’s superintendent of finance and personnel.

The money is earmarked for capital improvements and land purchases. Among the projects the district expects to spend the money on are:

Ÿ Stabilizing the Fox River shoreline at Bennett Park on Route 25;

Ÿ Developing community garden plots at Prairie Green Preserve on Peck Road;

Ÿ Renovating the Sunset Community Center;

Ÿ Replacing the Island Park north bridge;

Ÿ Installing a “natural playground” at Peck Farm Park on Kaneville Road;

Ÿ Developing the prairie at Peck Farm Park North;

Ÿ Replacing playground equipment throughout the district.

The district does not need voters’ permission to borrow the money, because the debt load was grandfathered in when Illinois adopted property tax cap legislation in 1990. At that time, the district was spending $699,000 a year on debt. A recent change in state law allows that ceiling to rise each year by the rate of the increase in the Consumer Price Index, so Geneva Park District can now levy about $719,000 a year for such non-capped debt.