Huntley agrees to freeze tax levy

It’s likely Huntley taxpayers won’t see an increase in the village’s portion of their tax bill.

Citing the economy, the village board gave preliminary consent Thursday to freeze the tax levy at $3.8 million, which means the owner of a $225,000 house will continue to pay about $350.

The official vote on the matter is scheduled for Dec. 13; if it goes through, it would mark the third consecutive year the village has kept the levy at $3.8 million.

“Things are still tough out there,” Village President Charles Sass said. “ ... I just think it’s the right thing to do.”

The second option was to raise the levy to $3.9 million, which would have meant about $40 extra for the owner of a $225,000 house.

Trustee Harry Leopold was the only one who supported that proposal.

He said $40 wasn’t that much, and the village needs the extra money for road maintenance.

“I think it’s time to get that extra little bit of money, and we certainly could use it,” Leopold said.

But most trustees agreed with Sass.

“This is about whether people can buy milk or not,” Trustee Pam Fender said. “If we have to wait a year on the street, we have to wait another year ... maybe the economy will be better by then. That’s all we can hope for.”

Money generated from the tax levy supports the general fund, liability insurance, the police pension fund and pensions for municipal workers.

Since the board has voted to leave the levy where it is, that will present a bit of a challenge as pensions and other expenses are going up, said Jennifer Chernak, the village’s director of finance and human resources.

That means village officials will need to use sales tax and other state-shared revenues to replace the roughly $900,000 that the $3.9 million levy would have generated, she said.