The newest spending plan for Barrington in the coming year outlines various projects to try and improve public utilities throughout the village but also includes a slightly lower property tax levy.
The coming year for Barrington officials will be highlighted by many construction projects after Barrington Village Board members approved a new village budget earlier this month, said Finance Director Jason Hayden.
“These are fairly significant infrastructure projects,” he said.
The 2017 budget overall in Barrington includes a deficit with projected revenues totaling $30.2 million compared to the $36.8 million in projected expenses. The deficit is temporary, Hayden said, since officials plan to use $8 million in bonds to fund infrastructure projects in 2017.
Starting in the spring, the village is scheduled to replace nearly 100-year-old sanitary sewers and finish the work by October. Village trustees prepared for the project back in 2015, when they agreed to issue the multi-million dollar bonds.
The work will start near Russell and Summit streets before continuing under the north parking lot at the Metra Commuter Station and also under Main Street, said Village Manager Jeff Lawler.
Work on the sanitary sewer line then goes north on North Avenue to East Liberty Street, west to West Liberty Street and under Route 59, as well as the EJ&E/Canadian National Railway, he said.
Other capital improvement projects in the budget includes $300,000 in engineering costs needed to construct a new pedestrian bike path along Hart Road from Lake Cook Road to the Northwest Highway, village officials said.
The new budget also includes $800,000 for engineering work and land acquisition to realign Lake Zurich Road, a project tied to Barrington officials’ ongoing efforts to build a railroad underpass on Route 14 that carries traffic underneath the Canadian National tracks.
As required by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, village officials also budgeted an additional $800,000 to remove phosphorous from treated water at the waste water treatment plant on Raymond Avenue, village officials said.
As for Barrington homeowners, the village’s overall requested property tax levy in the new budget is set to decrease by 0.11 percent compared to this year, but village officials are expecting to receive $3.98 million in property tax revenues.
Cook County homeowners in Barrington will see an estimated $82 less on the village’s portion of their property tax bills because officials are making less repayments on existing bonds, Hayden said.
Since property values increased in Lake County, homeowners living on that side of Barrington can expect to pay $48 more for the village’s portion of their property tax bills, Hayden said.
“The levy should have gone down equally in both counties, but the tax burden shifted from Cook to Lake,” he said.
Barrington also has reduced its workforce since 2008, when the village employed 152 people, Hayden said. In 2017, Barrington will employ 108 people, he said in a recent report to village trustees.
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