A scheduled vote by Niles Public Library officials on a proposed $800,000 property tax levy increase was moved to a later date after Board of Trustees President Linda Ryan determined more time was needed to comply with Illinois law, according to a release from the library district.
A public hearing on the levy, which amounts to about a 13 percent increase over last year, is slated for a board meeting on Wednesday evening, the same night a vote on the issue was previously scheduled to take place. State law dictates that a levy may not be adopted less than 20 days before an estimated levy is decided upon. The vote will take place on Monday, Nov. 30, a day before the deadline by which library officials must file their levy request, according to the release.
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A majority of the board agreed at a special meeting held earlier this month to increase the levy from the nearly $6 million request filed last year to just under $6.8 million this year, while two trustees, Carolyn Drblik and Danette Matyas, disagreed.
Ryan said the decision was a “tough” one but necessary to keep the district in the black in the coming years.
Per state law, levy increases are limited to either 5 percent over the prior year or the consumer price index, whichever is lower. But a taxing district that lowered their levy the previous year has the option to base the following year’s increase off whatever the highest property tax levy was during the preceding three years, said the district’s business manager Greg Pritz.
The 13 percent increase over last year is therefore based on a 2012 property tax levy of approximately $7.1 million, he said. Pritz said the district could have levied for as much as $7.2 million.
Lee V. Gaines is a freelance reporter for Pioneer Press.