Wilmette Park District officials said taxpayers may see a 2015 tax levy of $7.8 million, more than 8.5 percent lower than the amount of taxes the district received from its 2014 levy, in large part because the district’s proposed $14.5 million bond referendum request failed in April.
Park board commissioners who met Nov. 9 unanimously approved the introduction of the levy and set a Dec. 14 levy hearing.
The 8.52 percent drop, from 2014’s $8.62 million levy could be the largest drop in at least 22 years, Finance Superintendent Ken Eppelheimer said Nov. 10.
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“The last time the levy dropped, in 2013, the drop was less than one-tenth of a percent,” he said. “Otherwise, from a tax levy standpoint, it’s never gone down in the 22 year history I have.”
Both Eppelheimer and Commissioner Bryan Abbott, who presented the levy resolution at the meeting, said the overall levy’s drop is due to the scheduled decrease in debt payments for bonds the district issued in 2000 and 2002 to fund, respectively, a new Centennial Park pool complex and the purchase of Mallinckrodt Center.
The 2014 debt payment levy extension was roughly $3.6 million, Eppelheimer said, adding that this year’s debt service request will be $2.8 million, a drop of almost 22 percent.
That, combined with a .8 percent increase in most non-debt service funds, and a 3.6 percent increase in the levy that pays for the park district’s special recreation services – the combination of which leads to a total non-debt payment levy of $5.04 million versus a $4.98 million 2014 levy extension – results in the overall drop, Eppelheimer said.
Abbott said the park district’s share of property taxpayers’ bills “is about 6 percent, and we will probably be south of 6 percent this year.”
Had voters approved the bond referendum intended to fund lakefront park improvements when they went to the polls last April, the debt service levy would have remained relatively flat, he said after the board meeting.
When he presented the levy resolution, Abbott pointed out that the park district gets about 66 percent of its budget funding from user fees rather than taxes. The 2015 budget passed in January was roughly $32.3 million.
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