The Indian Prairie School District 204 board recently approved a $360.5 million property tax levy for 2025.
The levy, which is for taxes to be paid next year, features a roughly $14.4 million increase over the 2024 levy, which property owners paid this year.
Assuming an average home value of $507,000, the increase will add about $187, an increase of about 2.9%, to the portion of the tax bill paid to the school district, according to District 204 Chief School Business Official Matt Shipley.
The total estimated payment to the district for a taxpayer with a property valued at $507,000 would be $7,318, Shipley told The Beacon-News.
The property tax levy, which represents the total amount Indian Prairie is looking to receive from all property owners in the district, was increased by the Consumer Price Index, or CPI, a measure of inflation set by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, along with an allowance for new construction. State law caps taxing bodies’ tax extensions at 5% or the previous year’s CPI, whichever is lower.
The CPI in 2024 was 2.9%, and the district is expecting an additional 1.25% increase for new property, according to Shipley, for a total operating levy increase this year of 4.15%.
The $360.5 million figure does not include, however, the district’s bond and interest levy, set at around $27.2 million — around $1.5 million higher than last year. The bond and interest levy amount is set by the county, Shipley has said.
That levy amount is consistent, Shipley said, with the district’s promise to keep the tax rate flat for residents in terms of their contribution to capital projects following the passage of a referendum in November authorizing the district to sell $420 million in bonds for facility improvements. The bonds are to be paid for using a continuation of an existing 37-cent property tax per $100 of equalized assessed value that would otherwise have expired at the end of 2026.
With the bond and interest levy, the district’s total levy amount comes to a little under $387.7 million, for an overall increase of approximately 4.28% from 2024, per Shipley’s presentation.
On Monday, Shipley said that the district is “asking for revenues only to the extent necessary to fund services,” citing rising costs outpacing the CPI for things like salaries, health insurance benefits and transportation. And he said state and federal funding the district receives “have also not kept up with inflationary challenges,” which make property tax revenue “even more critical for the district.”
At a school board meeting in November, Shipley explained that the district is expecting to see significant increases in assessed property values this year. He said that tax values tend to lag behind market values, but are expected to catch up to the post-COVID-19 pandemic market increases.
The district is also anticipating around $70 million in new property within the district, he said, which equates to an additional roughly $3 million in revenue to D204.
The majority of District 204’s revenue tends to come from property taxes. Its most recently adopted budget, passed in September, shows property taxes accounting for a little more than 77% of the district’s expected revenue. That percentage has been gradually rising over the past two decades, Shipley said on Monday when the levy was approved.
The tax burden in the district has also shifted more toward residential properties and away from commercial or industrial properties following the quadrennial reassessment in 2023, officials have said.
At Monday’s meeting, Shipley said the district is nevertheless estimating this will be its lowest tax rate since 2011, in part because of the “strong local residential property market” and the district having in past years made annual increases at or below the CPI.
The levy approved by the school board on Monday is expected to generate a tax rate of approximately 4.55%, according to Shipley, and an increase in an average property owner’s tax payment this year of 2.9%. But the levy numbers do not necessarily reflect the change individual taxpayers will see on their property tax bills, as it depends on changes in the assessed values of their properties.
Shipley, in November, explained that the district does not control the property assessment process. While the average increase in property tax bills this year is 2.9%, some taxpayers will see higher increases, and some will see lower. A more than 2.9% increase on an individual’s property tax bill would result from their property values having increased more than the average property throughout the district, he said.
Following the levy’s approval — which had to be done before the end of December, according to Shipley — the district then files it with DuPage and Will counties, which will issue the final property tax extension. The district does not expect to receive the full amount it is requesting, Shipley explained, as the counties will adjust the levy down based on the exact new property amount once it’s determined in the spring.
From there, the counties’ treasurers will bill residents, collect the property taxes and remit the district’s portion of the taxes collected to Indian Prairie.
mmorrow@chicagotribune.com
