Wilmette Park District commissioners on Monday set the district’s $8.17 million 2017 levy after a brief public hearing. Their next financial task will be to pass a proposed 2018 budget of $26.7 million, which they expect to do in January.
The 2017 property tax levy will provide the second largest source of revenue for that budget, behind an expected $15.1 million in user fees, according to the budget proposal to which commissioners gave a review on Dec. 6 at a committee of the whole meeting.
Steve Wilson, the district’s executive director, said at the meeting that the district traditionally holds an annual levy hearing. Legally it doesn’t have to do so, he said, because a hearing is only mandated if the levy were to increase 5 percent above the amount of property taxes collected by the district the previous year.
The 2017 levy is set to increase by a much lower amount, he said: 1.93 percent over the 2016 levy collection by Cook County. The collection is commonly known as the levy extension since that is the amount the county gives, or extends, to the park district.
The tax revenue will be collected in two installments in 2018, according to the park district.
This year’s levy includes $4.5 million destined for the district’s corporate, recreation, pension and other funds, as well as $2.8 million to pay down some of the district’s bond debt. The levy also includes $642,000, which represents the district’s payment into the consortium of park districts that provides special recreation services to area residents.
After approving the levy, commissioners also approved an ordinance that directs county officials on which funds to cut, if the county determines the district has set its levy too high.
That happened this year with the 2016 levy, Wilson said; in that case, the district, which had set an $8.1 million levy, received $7.86 million, with the cuts in revenue affecting all park district funds. That actually lowered the increase in the 2016 levy over the park district’s 2015 extension to .02 percent, Wilson said.
The pending budget approval will be for a document that covers the 2018 calendar year. After a series of budget sessions this fall, district staff and commissioners have ironed out what they believe will be $26.74 million in spending and $28.2 million in revenue, according to information in the budget session package.
If everything in the proposed budget remains as it was in that package, spending will include $12.4 million in the district’s recreation fund, a majority of which comes from user fees rather than property taxes. Another $4.3 million has been budgeted for corporate fund spending, which handles much of the district’s daily administrative costs.
According to information from the December budget session, the district also plans to spend about $4.08 million in capital projects, including an estimated $2.9 million for the first segment of Gillson beach infrastructure work.
The Gillson project’s first components will be a new beach house, and a reconfigured beach parking lot.
The largest single portion of that project, roughly estimated at $6.35 million in current capital projections, is expected to be budgeted and paid for in 2019.
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