A majority of Niles Public Library District trustees agreed at a special meeting Thursday night to increase the 2015 property tax levy by $800,000, according to library officials.
Library Board president, Linda Ryan, described the meeting as a “tough” one and the decision to increase the levy by a little more than 13 percent over last year’s property tax levy was “not a celebrated event,” but something she said was necessary to keep the district out of the red in the coming years.
Trustees Carolyn Drblik and Danette Matyas disagreed with the decision to increase the levy from the just under $6 million request the board filed last year to nearly $6.8 million in 2015, said the district’s business manager Greg Pritz.
State law limits levy increases to either 5 percent over last year or the consumer price index, whichever is lower, but taxing district that lowered their levy the previous year have the option to base the following year’s increase off whatever the highest property tax levy was during the previous three. In this case, the district was able to increase the levy by a little more than 13 percent over last year based on a 2012 property tax levy of roughly $7.1 million, Pritz said. He said the district could have levied for as much as $7.2 million.
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Taxing bodies that increase their levy by over 5 percent are required to hold a truth in taxation hearing prior to a vote on the figure. A hearing is scheduled for Nov. 18, Pritz said, the same night the board is scheduled to make a final decision on the levy.
He said the levy increase will add about $39 to the annual property tax bill of a home valued at $300,000 in the library district.
At a meeting in October, Pritz outlined several options for the board, including a decrease in the levy by $500,000, a level levy, a slight increase of $300,000 and a much larger increase of $1 million. The only route that offered a deficit-free forecast for the next five years was the million dollar increase.
Ryan said if the board chose to file a levy request for anything less than the $800,000, the library would be “in a vulnerable position.”
Staff and the board plan to embark on a strategic planning process in the coming year, she said, and a lower levy would prevent officials from even considering expanding services.
“I don’t want to go into a strategic plan saying, ‘no, we can’t do anything,'” Ryan said. “I want to be able to have wiggle room to get the services to the community that they expect.”
Once staff and the board know the cost of the items and services they decide to include in the library’s new strategic plan, and the figures included in the fiscal 2017 budget, Ryan said she is “hoping and praying, honestly, we can lower this levy to where it was.”
Drblik and Matyas did not immediately return a request for comment.
Lee V. Gaines is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.