Taxpayers in Maine Township High School District 207 will have some money returned to them this year and also see savings related to lower interest rates on money borrowed for school construction projects, the district announced.
The District 207 Board of Education on Feb. 7 voted to approve a property-tax abatement of $2 million.
The abatement will be reflected on the second installment of tax bills sent out later this year, said Brett Clark, spokesman for District 207.
Exactly how the abatement will impact the average homeowner in each of the communities served by the district is not known, Clark said.
The abatement involves taxes that were levied late last year to pay off debts for bonds that were issued in September 2019 for school construction projects, according to the district.
Because the district determined it has available funds on hand to pay a portion of the principal and interest on the bonds, a decision was made to abate $2 million back to taxpayers, according to the resolution passed by the board.
“The abatement comes as a result of the district receiving additional taxes due to the expiration of the Des Plaines downtown Tax Increment Financing (TIF) district,” the district explained in a news release. “Taxes paid to the district (207) as part of this TIF area have been frozen for the past 35 years. The taxes from that TIF area being provided to the district (today) provided the opportunity to abate $2 million in taxes for 2021.”
Tax abatements were passed in recent years by the Maine Township Town Board and the Niles-Maine District Library Board.
On Feb. 16, some members of the board for the Niles-Maine District Library, which serves Niles and unincorporated Maine Township, attempted to abate another $1 million in property taxes, but the measure failed by a 3-3 vote. The abatement motion came after reductions to the library budget and 2021 tax levy were approved by the board last year.
District 207 also announced that it will see $53 million in savings thanks to lower interest rates on bonds issued to pay the remainder of the district’s major renovation project across all three schools.
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On Jan. 13, the district sold the remaining $65 million in bonds needed for the project with a true interest cost of 1.35%.
In 2018, the estimated interest on the $196 million in total that was borrowed for the construction was 4.54%, but it will actually come to 2.54%, resulting in the $53 million in savings to taxpayers, the district said.
“The lower than anticipated interest rate means an individual tax payer’s bill will be lower than we projected by about 17%,” said Assistant Superintendent for Finance Mary Kalou in a statement. “Similar to an individual mortgage, a lower rate means a lower mortgage payment.”
The renovations at the three Maine Township high schools are anticipated to be complete following the summer of 2023, according to the district.