Meta property boosts tax base for now: DeKalb County officials

SYCAMORE – A partial assessment of Meta’s newly constructed property in DeKalb, which will be abated in future tax cycles, has significantly increased DeKalb County’s property tax base and given officials new tax options to consider.

DeKalb County administration official Liam Sullivan said county staff continually evaluate assumptions made when proposing the county’s budget and tax levy, and recently found that newly constructed property has deepened the county’s property tax base since the budget was first drafted.

“The [fiscal 2025] budget was put together using a variety of assumptions based on information we had available at the time,” Sullivan said. “The assumption that was used for new construction was $118 million. There was a partial assessment that came online for Meta, which brought up new construction to $221 million.”

The partial assessment of Meta’s property in DeKalb has increased the value of property that can be taxed in the county by $103 million. That property will contribute less to the property tax base next year, however.

“With the Meta buildings, the abatement doesn’t start until they are fully assessed, so once that full assessment for each one of those buildings comes on, then the abatement starts.”

—  Bridget Nodurft, the chief assessment officer for DeKalb County

The Meta data center, owned by Facebook’s parent company, is privy to a 20-year, 55% property tax abatement plan through the DeKalb County Enterprise Zone, a program administered by the DeKalb County Economic Development Corporation. The abatement plan comes with a stipulation of 50 tech jobs with a starting wage of $38.50 an hour to qualify for tax abatements within the first few years, documents show.

Bridget Nodurft, the chief assessment officer for DeKalb County, said because Meta’s buildings weren’t completed on Jan. 1, 2024, the properties were given a prorated assessment based on the date of occupancy.

“Say if you built a brand new house, same thing,” Nodurft said. “If you were able to move in and live in it, then we’re going to do a prorated assessment on it. So that’s that normal process of assessing new property. Now, this is a very special circumstance in that they have property abatements on there. There aren’t a whole lot of them.”

The 30-year veteran of the assessment office said two Meta-owned buildings have already been fully assessed and are being abated, while the three Meta buildings that were partially assessed in 2024 will be fully abated in subsequent tax years.

“With the Meta buildings, the abatement doesn’t start until they are fully assessed, so once that full assessment for each one of those buildings comes on, then the abatement starts,” Nodurft said.

DeKalb County’s most recent property value assessments, which impact how much individual taxpayers pay in property taxes have not yet been published, but Nodurft said that will change on Oct. 17. Township multipliers, which also impacts a taxpayer’s bill, will also be applied at that time, she said.

Sullivan said officials will have to decide what to do, if anything, with the limited-time additional tax base the partially assessed Meta buildings give DeKalb County. During a DeKalb County Committee of the Whole meeting Wednesday evening, he presented County Board members with three options to consider when they go to vote on the 2025 property tax levy.

The property tax levy option Sullivan said staff recommends the County Board approve would result in more money for the county but a small reduction in what the average DeKalb County property taxpayer would owe for the 2024 property tax levy.

That option would reduce the property tax rate from 89 cents per $100 of assessed value to 80 cents, according to DeKalb County estimates.

County officials estimate under that tax rate, the owner of a $200,000 property in 2023 would pay, on average, $7.31 less on their 2024 property tax bill (payable in 2025) than they did the previous year, according to county documents.

Despite the property tax rate reduction, the county would still levy $1.4 million more than it did in the 2023 property tax levy, and $500,000 more than the levy total of $27.7 million proposed in the the fiscal 2025 preliminary budget.

Sullivan said county staff propose allocating any additional funds realized through the increased levy toward its Debt and Tax Stabilization Plan. That money would be used for a one-time transfer to the 2017 jail bond debt service fund, helping to expedite the debt service repayment, according to county documents.

Another option would be to reduce the property tax rate from 89 cents per $100 of assessed value to 81 centsThat was the proposed tax rate in the preliminary budget; but with the larger-than-expected new construction figures boosting the property tax base, the proposed tax rate would increase the total amount levied by the county by $847,946 from the previous year.

Sullivan said that option would “hold the line” for taxpayers, borrowing a phrase from former DeKalb County Administrator Brian Gregory that was often used to describe a tax policy that officials believed would have a net-zero impact on the average existing taxpayer. (Individual taxpayers could still see their bills rise due to their home values being reassessed.)

An additional option, Sullivan said, would be to maintain the total sum already proposed for the 2024 property tax levy before the partially abated properties were added to the county’s tax base.

“That would have a large reduction to the average existing taxpayer,” Sullivan said. “A $200,000 house, factoring in the multiplier, that would equate to a reduction of $17.81 for the average existing taxpayer.”

No action was taken on the matter Wednesday night, and Sullivan said the County Board isn’t expected to take a vote on the budget and property tax levy until at least November.