Waukegan Community Unit School District 60 is proposing a 4.98% increase in the 2021 real estate tax levy impacting taxes payable next year, but payments will likely go down because the district paid off approximately $22.2 million in debt.
The District 60 Board of Education plans to vote on the new levy after a public hearing at 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Lincoln Center administration building in Waukegan giving taxpayers some relief next year.
Gwendolyn Polk, the district’s associate superintendent of business and financial services, briefed board members on the proposed levy during a regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday. The new levy will be approximately $55 million. The actual amount last year was $52.4 million.
Along with a discussion of the 2021 levy, board members unanimously approved a $66,301 expenditure on a pilot program at Waukegan High School’s Washington campus to detect vaping and smoking in the bathrooms.
Though property taxes are a sizable portion of the district’s annual revenue, Polk said the largest part of projected income of just over $300 million comes from the state of Illinois through evidence-based funding. Real estate taxes account for approximately 17.8%.
Polk said over the past few years the levy could have been raised more than it was, but the board wanted to hold taxes level. This year, there is an opportunity to approve an increase without making property taxes more expensive.
“We’ve paid off two of our huge bonds,” Polk said during the meeting. “We were typically paying upward $6 or $7 million in bond payments. Now we’re down to around $4 million. That’s why it’s going down.”
In the past year, Polk said the district made the final payments on a $13.5 million bond issue funded in 2010, and another for just over $9.7 million sold in 2001.
Based on current projections, the owner of a typical $160,000 Waukegan home will see an approximate reduction of around $24.78 on this year’s property tax bill from what the individual paid a year ago.
Should the district successfully apply for a Property Tax Relief Grant from the state, Polk said property taxes will drop even more. In districts like Waukegan, where the tax rate is high relative to other areas, Illinois provides relief with state funds.
“The state says we will we will give you 90%, but you must abate all of it to the taxpayers,” Polk said after the meeting. “We give up (the 10%) to benefit our taxpayers, but we get to keep the entire amount in the tax base for next year.”
In the event the state approves the grant, Polk said during the meeting the owner of the $160,000 Waukegan home will see their savings climb from about $24.78 to $396.24.
Not only will taxes be dropping slightly, but the district approved a pilot program for the rest of the year to detect vaping by students by installing HALO Smart Sensor Detectors in the bathrooms of the high school’s Washington campus.
Darryl Wilson, the district’s director of crisis intervention and safety, said when vaping is detected, it will send a message to administrators and school security personnel. Students will know the sensors are in the bathrooms. It is not an effort to trap them.
“This program is a deterrent,” Wilson said. “We’re not trying to hide anything. The fire alarms were going off (before), and we were losing too much class time.”
Wilson said he anticipates evaluating the program at the end of the school year. At that time, he may suggest the sensors also be installed at the high school’s Brookside campus as well as the district’s five middle schools.
