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player ready...The Lyons Township High School District 204 Board has approved a $66.3 million property tax levy, up 2.37 percent from last year.
Brian Stachacz, director of business services, said the levy, which must be filed by Dec. 27 with Cook County, does not entirely cover the district’s projected expenses.
The district is anticipating about $75 million in expenses.
There is about $9 million that comes from other sources such as interest, fees and state and federal contributions, he said.
To come up with the levy, Stachacz said the district is estimating that the equalized assessed value of existing property within the district will stay about the same as last year. He said this year’s estimate is $2.68 billion compared to $2.67 billion last year.
“It has stayed flat,” he said.
Under the Property Tax Extension Limitation law, the district is bound to not increase the property tax levy for existing property by more than 0.7 percent, he said. The percent is based on the Consumer Price Index that was reported in December 2015, he said.
The district’s estimate of the value of new construction is $50 million, and that makes up about 2.3 percent of the district’s anticipated levy.
It’s impossible to know when new construction will come on line. The district, and others throughout the state, commonly inflate the levy to make sure it does not miss out on any dollars, he said.
“You always want to make sure your levy is high enough to capture all of the new property out there,” he said. “If you don’t, you can never go out and capture those dollars in future years.”
It is up to the county to provide a final new construction amount and calculate how much the district actually gets. That notification should come in late spring, Stachacz said.
School board member George Dougherty said the levy “is reasonable and prudent.”
He also said the board has made strides in controlling costs in recent years while also making large capital improvements such as updating the Reber Center and replacing boilers.
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