Mount Prospect approves budget, flat tax levy

Mount Prospect trustees passed a $132.5 million budget for 2021 this week, along with a flat property tax levy of just below $19.5 million.

Finance Director Amit Thakkar said that based on the levy, the owner of a $300,000 home would pay $864 in property taxes to the village next year.

However, Trustee Richard Rogers noted that the village makes up just a fraction of residents' overall property tax bills.

"(The village levy) does not mean that your real estate tax is going down, because we're only a small portion of the real estate tax bill," he said. "The larger portion of that bill comes from the school districts and, depending on how they handle it, they may be still increasing real estate taxes."

Thakkar said the village is abating $3.9 million in property taxes from its debt service levy, since it has other revenue sources to pay back the debt on bonds.

"I think we find ourselves in remarkably fortuitous circumstances with an ability to actually abate tax levies, because of our diverse sources of revenue and, of course, our prudent fiscal management," Mayor Arlene Juracek said.

The $132.5 million budget includes $77.3 million for operations, a .1% increase.

Thakkar said there is no reduction in services, but the village is cutting its workforce by two management-level employees, resulting in a savings of $280,000.

The village also will spend about $2.3 million from its reserves to help fund Levee 37-related work. This will drop the balance to 29% of the total budget, still above the village's goal of a 25% balance.