Fox River Grove School District 3 approves property tax levy increase, plans to abate in February

Fox River Grove School District 3′s board unanimously approved an increase to its property tax levy at a meeting earlier this month.

The $6.139 million levy approved is an increase of about 2.65% over last year’s $5.976 million levy.

Most of the funds requested – about $4.667 million – will go to its education fund, Superintendent Tim Mahaffy said. Another $500,000 will go to operations and maintenance and about $200,000 is being asked for the transportation fund.

The district has shifted some of the money requested in the levy, asking for less for the transportation fund, for example, because it hasn’t needed to spend as much money on transportation because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mahaffy said previously.

District 3 has been learning remotely since October.

Instead, the money that would normally be needed in transportation is instead required by the education fund and in operations and maintenance, Mahaffy said.

School districts are capped in how much they can increase their levy each year by a formula that takes into consideration the rate of inflation and new construction in the area. The inflation rate used in the formula this year is 2.3%.

Because the district has known about this 2.3% since January 2020, it has been budgeting and planning based on that figure, Mahaffy said.

The school board is set to considered an abatement of a little more than $309,000 at an upcoming February meeting as part of the state’s Property Tax Relief Grant program, Mahaffy said. That means the district would not collect those dollars in property taxes.

The Fox River Grove district was one of 39 school districts selected to receive the 2020 Property Tax Relief Grant, which allows school districts to cut local property taxes and replace them with state funds, according to the Illinois State Board of Education.

As part of the grant, participating districts are required to abate taxes for two years in a row in order to receive the money from the state. After abating taxes for two years, the grant amount will become a permanent part of the school district’s state funding going forward.

By abating the $309,000, District 3 can collect the property tax relief grant for the second year in a row in the amount of $209,540, Mahaffy said.

“And then the nice thing is, after this year, the district will no longer need to abate those taxes, but will continue to receive the $209,540 as part of the base funding minimum,” Mahaffy said. “So, in year three, we will be money ahead and now getting it from the state rather than our community, which is a great thing.”

District 3 has abated $1.4 million since 2013, Mahaffy said.