DeKalb mayor calls for countywide property tax relief for area residents

DeKALB – DeKalb Mayor Cohen Barnes is calling for countywide collaboration from area taxing bodies to reduce the property tax burden on residents.

The mayor recently spearheaded a tax summit bringing together representatives from area taxing bodies that he says he hopes to encourage to help reduce the burden across the board for taxpayers without cutting services.

Among the area taxing bodies represented at the summit were the city of DeKalb, DeKalb Community Unit School District 428, DeKalb Park District, Kishwaukee Water Reclamation District, DeKalb Public Library, DeKalb Township and DeKalb County government.

“My main goal was to get all the taxing bodies to have representatives in a room where collectively we could start having a conversation about working together toward a common goal and that common goal being reducing our aggregate property tax rate to 9%,” Barnes said. “Every taxing body is going to have different challenges, different needs. We know that. But this was unprecedented to be able to bring everyone together, have a conversation, and everyone in the room by the end all agreed to be supportive of further discussion to continue to talk about reducing the tax rate, which is, I think, incredibly exciting.”

The city has seen an estimated $200 million in new value over the past three years spurred, in part, by development incurring on DeKalb’s south end from Meta, Amazon and Ferrara Candy Company.

“Because of all the economic development especially on the south end of town, taxing bodies have been able to receive more tax revenue, which means their budgets have increased. This is a perfect opportunity for us to work together to figure out how some of that money can be returned to the taxpayer in the form of a reduction of our tax rate.”

—  DeKalb Mayor Cohen Barnes

Barnes said the time is now for area taxing districts to lower the tax rate. He attributes what he called the city’s upward trajectory to 15 years-in-the-making of planning. Last fall, the DeKalb City Council approved a plan to keep DeKalb residents’ property tax rate flat, meaning city residents likely won’t see an increase on the city portion of their 2022 property tax bill.

“Because of all the economic development, especially on the south end of town, taxing bodies have been able to receive more tax revenue, which means their budgets have increased,” Barnes said. “This is a perfect opportunity for us to work together to figure out how some of that money can be returned to the taxpayer in the form of a reduction of our tax rate.”

One such reason the city would like to lower the tax rate is to remain competitive with neighboring communities such as Sycamore, Geneva, Batavia and St. Charles.

Barnes said he views this as a way to level the playing field for DeKalb and its efforts to entice new housing and commercial development.

“[The reason] why we don’t have the amount of commercial that we could have as well as the reason we have so few housing starts is our property tax is just too high to make it economically feasible for a developer to come in and build houses or build commercial buildings,” Barnes said. “That’s why we’re always having to offer continued incentive programs to reduce the property tax rate to attract businesses.”

Property tax relief was approved for a number of significant developments on the south side. In 2020, the Meta DeKalb Data Center, owned by Facebook’s parent company, was granted a 20-year, 55% property tax abatement which includes stipulations for number of jobs and wages. In 2019, property tax abatements also were approved for Ferrara Candy Company, which announced its arrival to DeKalb in January 2020. The candy company was approved to abate their property taxes by 50% for the next 15 years.

Each of the tax abatements were approved in public meetings by elected officials without the developer being publicly identified.

Barnes stressed that he’s not asking taxing bodies to cut services to make a reduction in the tax rate happen.

“The levy that they’re going to get is going to go up,” Barnes said. “They’re going to have more dollars to spend in their budget. I’m just saying rather than taking all the new money that you’re going to get and increase your budget to the maximum, why not give some of that money back to the taxpayer? … You can lower your tax rate and still have a larger budget. That’s only possible because of the Facebooks, the Amazons, the Ferraras that are coming to our community because all the property taxes they pay are new dollars into the pool that everyone dips into.”

The city anticipates that the 2022 tax rate will likely be published in April, after which Barnes intends to meet with representatives from area taxing bodies in another tax meeting.