The controversial collar-county tax cap has cut the average McHenry County property tax rate increase in half, but homeowners should not be shocked if the bills they receive in the next few weeks are up by more than the much publicized 5 percent, county officials said Tuesday.
The tax cap that the General Assembly imposed on the collar counties last year was supposed to restrict the annual property tax collection by a unit of government to 5 percent or the rate of inflation, whichever is less.
But Randall Woloski, supervisor of assessments, said the average tax for existing properties increased by 5.57 percent in the 1991 tax bills, payable this year. This, however, is a drop from tax increases of 10 to 11 percent in prior years.
A Tribune survey of 16 representative properties in five of the county`s most populous townships showed an average tax increase of 3.6 percent, compared with an increase of 10.5 percent last year. Seven of the surveyed parcels showed increases greater than 5 percent because of various exemptions to the tax cap.
Exemptions are allowed for home-rule governments and for levies to pay for new construction and bond issues. Individual units of governments raised levies by 8 to 18 percent, a Tribune analysis showed.
The levy, or total tax collection, for both the McHenry County Board and the county`s Conservation District each went up by 7 percent, and the average levy for the 17 townships increased by 8.1 percent.
The average levy for the 27 cities and villages went up by 8.6 percent;
for 29 school districts, by 9.8 percent; for 19 fire protection districts, by 12.6 percent; for five park districts, by 18 percent; and for 12 library districts, by 14 percent, according to figures compiled by County Clerk Katherine Schultz.
Only one taxing district, the village of Barrington Hills, is a home-rule municipality. Its levy went up 18 percent, according to Schultz.
Property owners will begin seeing the increases shortly. The second installment of tax bills are expected to be mailed out next week and will be due Sept. 18, said County Treasurer William Ward.
”Everybody knew that all bills were not going to be capped at 5 percent because of the variables, but the cap has worked as far as reducing the size of individual increases,” Schultz said.
”Another factor is that the different townships have different multipliers,” she said. ”This means that a homeowner in a taxing district that encompasses two or more townships is going to have a different bill than a homeowner in a different township of the same taxing district, even though the tax rate is the same.”
Albert Jourdan, county and state Republican chairman who also is McHenry County auditor, said government spending ”is always an issue.”
”This county is a frugal, conservative area and has been for years,”
Jourdan said.
County Board Chairman Ann Hughes said the 7 percent increase in the board`s levy compares with a 17 percent increase for 1990 bills, payable last year, and an 11.3 percent increase for 1989 bills.
”It`s fair to say that taxing districts in general have become more sensitized to taxes and spending, and I think we would have seen some smaller increases even without the tax cap,” Hughes said.
But Frank McClatchey, county Democratic chairman, predicted that homeowners will still complain about their bills, and he blamed Republicans, the dominant party in the county, for the spending increases.
”There`s a gross amount of waste in government, and there are positions that are going to have to be cut,” McClatchey said. ”It`s time that people start looking at levies, instead of just individual bills, because the spending is coming out of their pockets.”
Woloski pointed out that the tax cap will be about 3.1 percent next year, based on the consumer price index.
Leslie Hellemann, county school superintendent, said that to live within the budget restraints set by the tax cap, some districts may have to increase class size, freeze hiring or eliminate some positions or programs in the coming year.
”Next year is going to be worse than this year unless the schools get more state aid,” Hellemann said.
Joseph Misurelli, Crystal Lake city manager, said municipalities are increasingly relying on non-property tax revenues such as impact fees, sales tax revenues and utility taxes, as well as increased property taxes from new construction and reassessment.
”The answer is to keep a happy balance between different revenues,”
Misurelli said. ”Simply annexing more property doesn`t necessarily help because you may also end up having to provide more city services such as sewer and water and police protection, which reduces the amount of extra revenue that you take in.”
