When four new members joined the board of education of Elgin School District U46 this week, they argued over some issues. But one thing they could agree on was that the school district should go on record as opposing the creation of a tax incremental financing district in downtown Bartlett.
U46 Chief Operating Officer Jeff King told the school board this week that, designed to make it easier for developers to afford to build or improve downtown-area properties, the financing district would cause tax receipts from that area for governmental bodies such as District U46 to stay the same until the TIF expires 23 years from now. Any increase in taxes instead would go into a TIF fund that could be used by the village of Bartlett to pay for improvements that developers had made in the district.
King noted that tax receipts to the school district could even go down if real estate prices rose enough throughout the school district to push down the districtwide tax rate. And that would indirectly cause taxes billed to other property owners in the school district to go up more than they would have if the Bartlett TIF area would have absorbed its share of the annual levy.
The TIF district would be approximately bounded by Wilmington Drive to the east, Devon Avenue to the south, Western Avenue to the west and North Avenue to the north.
King said the current assessed value of real estate in the proposed district is $18.5 million, and District U46 now collects about $1.1 million a year in tax from those properties. So if the U46 levy extension would go up by 5 percent in a given year, the taxes in a non-TIF version of that area could be expected to go up about $55,000.
“TIFs tend to be crony capitalism and I think that’s a bad idea,” said Jeanette Ward, one of three new school board members who was elected on an anti-tax platform.
The school board then voted 7-0 to have King speak out against the proposal at the May 14 meeting of a “joint review board” of governmental bodies formed to advise the Village of Bartlett on the proposal.
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The Bartlett Public Library District Board also has voted to oppose the TIF to avoid losing 23 years of tax increases. The Bartlett Park District Board will consider the issue on May 12.
The decision about whether to create a tax incremental financing district is up to the village government.