Niles Township High School District 219 officials have proposed a tax levy of nearly $140 million for operating funds which would be collected in 2018 if approved, a 4.1 percent increase over this year’s levy but is not expected to increase existing property owners’ tax bills.
The total 2017 levy request, when factoring in all sources including debt, is about $142.5 million, said Eric Trimberger, NTHS District 219 assistant superintendent for business.
The NTHS District 219 school board approved the tentative levy Oct. 17 at a regular meeting. The board is scheduled to approve the final levy in December, officials said.
Although the Cook County property tax cap limits the amount of revenue a taxing body can generate from property taxes, new property growth is exempt from the cap. The district is asking for more than the 2.1 percent consumer price index — the annual cap — to capture all potential taxes from that new growth, Trimberger said.
A number of tax increment financing zones in the school district have not quite yet expired, he said, and it’s been a busy construction year. The school district serves Skokie, Morton Grove, Lincolnwood and Niles.
“There’s…a significant amount of new construction that’s taken place,” Trimberger said. “This is really protection for the board to capture new construction.”
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The proposed levy increase is $5.3 million more than last year and split almost evenly between what the district can receive under the tax cap and projected new growth, Trimberger said.
If the district were to receive all it is seeking, $2.7 million of the increase would come from allowable taxes under the cap and $2.6 million from new property, which is estimated at $85 million, Trimberger said.
Even with the requested increase, Trimberger said there is no impact to current taxpayers.
“For existing taxpayers, we are not increasing taxes at all,” he said.
That’s possible because the district will retire $63.7 million of debt payments Dec. 1, which reduces the debt portion of the levy by $1.1 million, Trimberger said.
Broken down, the proposed levy includes nearly $110 million for the school district’s educational fund, $7 million for operations and maintenance, $4.6 million for transportation, $4.1 million for special education, $3.6 million for tort immunity, $2.5 million for social security and $2.1 million for retirement, according to information officials presented at the school board meeting.
Trimberger said that because the proposed levy is not 5 percent or more over last year, the district is not required to hold a public hearing.
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