Lee County Board OKs fiscal 2025 budget despite one member’s last-ditch effort to halt property tax hike

DIXON - Despite one Lee County Board member’s last-ditch effort to prevent a property tax increase, both the fiscal 2025 proposed tax levy and budget were approved Thursday on a 18-1 vote.

The new property tax rate is set at 84.97 cents per $100 of equalized assessed value, which is an increase over the fiscal 2024 rate of 82.28 cents. This new rate results in an estimated annual tax bill increase of $11.82 for a home valued at $150,000, according to the approved tax levy ordinance.

The total 2025 property tax levy is $9,439,552, which is $680,172 – or 7.77%% – more than what was levied for 2024. The increase primarily is due to a significant increase in the estimated new property with an assessed value of $4.5 million, according to the ordinance.

When it came time to vote on the levy, District 1 board member Angie Shippert, who joined the board in January 2023, made a motion to suspend normal board rules to discuss potential changes to the levy and the budget.

“Within the levy, there is a way to capture the [tax rate for the] new business that’s coming into town, without capturing the additional funds that we want to have from our citizens. The proposed $11 essentially per citizen, we would remove that,” Shippert said. “I think that we should try to do what we can and not give this additional increase.”

In response, Finance Committee Chairman Jim Schielein said it’s “hard to do that here at the last second, at the last meeting that we have before we pass the budget.”

The budget process started in June, he said..

“There was an opportunity from July, August, September, October, to talk about what was included [in the levy and the budget],” Schielein said.

He then emphasized how the county has cut back on its dependence on property taxes for its revenue - which makes up about 56% for fiscal 2025. As for expenditures, about 85% of those are salaries.

“When you talk about cutting back the budget, I’m going to ask you where you want to cut? What positions do you want to reduce,” Schielein asked.

County Treasurer Paul Rudolphi, who was asked to explain to public meeting attendees how property tax rates are calculated in the county, was also against cutting back the budget.

“We are doing a pretty good job of keeping our costs down,” he said, adding that it’s evidenced by the large amount of full-time county employees who make less than $40,000 a year and the employees who they were required to give raises to because they were making less than $15 an hour.

“When we talk about cutting, are we talking about defunding the police? Is that what you guys are wanting? I don’t want it, and that’s not really what we should be doing. I’m putting a little of my own spin on this right, but I think somebody’s got to say it,” Rudolphi said.

With that, Shippert’s motion to suspend the rules went to a vote and failed, with 13 board members voting no and six voting yes. In order to pass, it required a “super majority” or two-thirds of the voting body to say yes. With a total of 20 board members and 19 present at Thursday’s meeting, six votes for yes was not enough.

After that, the board considered a motion to approve the levy.

District 3 board member Tim Bivins, who served as a state senator representing the 45th District from 2008 until 2019, supported approving the levy and the budget and spoke to his experience as a senator to explain why.

“I never voted for a tax increase in the 10 years that I was in Springfield because not that I wouldn’t have, I could have, if there had been three criteria met and that would be a balanced budget, no wasteful spending, and a justifiable need,” he said. “This county budget, however, has met all those criteria. The budget presented is balanced. There’s no wasteful spending, and the need exists.”

Specifically on the topic of wages, Bivins said that for many years the Lee County Sheriff’s Office has been struggling to maintain employees because “they were getting paid thousands of dollars less than other departments” and subsequently were moving to other departments to get a higher pay rate.

“We can comment all we want about how much we appreciate our employees, but at some point you have to pay them too,” he said.

On that point Shippert said, “I reject the notion that we would in any sort of way want to defund our police or our public safety or even go after our employee salaries.”

That statement earned her a round of applause from members of the public who attended the meeting.

Instead of cutting wages she offered a different solution.

“When you look through the budget, for example, you see the line item of training and conferences. I understand we need to train our people, but can we figure out, for example, a way to do that differently?” Shippert said.

Regardless, the levy went to a vote, followed by the budget without any further discussion. Both items were approved with every present board member voting yes with the exception of Shippert, who voted no.

The approved fiscal 2025 tax levy and budget are available to view on Lee County’s website.