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Continuing a list of completed school facility upgrades and future renovations, the Plano School District 88 approved its 2024 tax levy that will have property owners seeing a 2.78% increase over last year’s school district portion of their property bills.
At its monthly meeting, the school board unanimously approved a total levy of $20,780,432, an increase of a little over half a million dollars over last year’s levy.
Luke Baughman, the district’s chief school business official, said that someone who owns a $200,000 home can expect to see an estimated $82.81 increase on the school portion’s of their property bill, factoring in an average 12% increase in the value of their home over the past year.
Baughman said this calculation is under the assumption that the district continues its series of tax abatements it has implemented over the past several years. He said since the 2015 budget, the district has approved tax abatements to relieve the burden on taxpayers, resulting in about $17.4 million in tax abatement.
“Tax abatement continues to be a financial commitment of our school board,” Baughman said. “The district anticipates continuing this process, with the goal to abate close to another $2 million in February 2025.”
Baughman said usually when the Equalized Assessed Valuation of a property increases, property taxes will increase, provided that the tax rate stays the same. However, he said some unique factors have enabled Plano’s district to impose lower levy increases than other local school districts.
“Since 2014, the tax rate has decreased from 10.288 to 6.014, which is over 41 percent,” Baughman said. “This percentage decrease is significantly higher than that of other school districts in the area. For the 2024 tax levy, the projected tax rate will be 5.4934.”
The total tax levy is calculated using a combination of inflation measured by the Consumer Price Index, the estimated EAV growth, new construction and program needs.
A surge in regional housing prices has lifted Kendall County’s EAV to its highest ever rate.
Continuing capital projects to improve school safety and facilities
The school board recently approved funding for a capital projects plan that continues infrastructural improvements throughout the district’s school facilities.
Baughman said a long list of projects are slated for the upcoming 2025 summer months. These projects follow in the tracks of the progress made on last summer’s completed capital projects.
This summer, the district is planning to replace water lines at Plano Middle School, as well as replacing hallway flooring at the middle school and all students desks and chairs at both the middle school and Centennial Elementary.
District officials also are looking to install new security cameras at all of the district’s buildings, fund their yearly roof coating program, and replace all of the classroom doors and locks to improve security measures at Centennial Elementary.
All of these projects are currently scheduled to be completed before students return for the 2025 fall semester.
The projects follow infrastructural and safety measures completed at the district’s schools over the summer of 2024.
These capital projects included renovating school entrances to enhance safety, completing the renovation on the Plano High School gymnasium and roof repairs across many school buildings.
The district also replaced the track surface and the flooring and stair treads at the high school.
Improving the district’s school facilities is prioritized in consideration of the immense population growth experienced across not only across the entire school district, but seen across all of Kendall County.