With levy staying level, village watching expenses
By Jeanne Millsap - Herald Correspondent
CHANNAHON – The tax levy for the village of Channahon, which is used to compute property taxes payable next summer, is expected to be little changed from the 2008 extension.
The village board this week was told the preliminary tax levy is $1.923 million, which is about 100.6 percent of what it was last year. If the levy would have been more than 105 percent of the amount of taxes extended last year, a public hearing would have been required.
The total EAV last year was $365,113,082, while in 2009, the base EAV could be $364,508,362.
Finance Director Bob Guess said this is the first time he has seen the base EAV down from the previous year’s total EAV. That fact is most likely due to homestead exemptions that many residents took, he said.
Foreclosed homes, he explained, are still on the tax rolls.
Guess said both Will and Grundy counties are using updated software this year that allows him to calculate more-accurate numbers.
The proposed tax rate is 0.5239 – the same as rates adopted for the previous two years.
The village board Monday also decided to take a couple more weeks to consider the amount, if any, the village will donate to the Will County Center for Economic Development.
The center’s director, John Greuling, asked the board to once again contribute $10,000, but enough trustees voted against the motion (Judie Nash, Scott McMillin, Scott Slocum, and Sam Greco), that it failed.
Slocum asked Greuling if the center would wait until the next board meeting in two weeks to give them time to consider whether they would support donating a lesser amount.
Channahon is currently working on an economic development group of its own, just for the area, and the village has already budgeted $50,000 for that council.
“We probably won’t use that this year,” Slocum said after the meeting. “We will probably roll it over to next year.”
But the village has to tighten its belt this year, Slocum said, in these difficult economic times.
“Times are very tough,” he said, “and we are looking at making some tough decisions around here.”
Village President Joe Cook said Channahon has been trying to hold the line on purchases and will be looking very closely at line items in the coming year’s budget.
Trustee Debbie Militello voted for giving the Will County council the normal funds, saying the group is doing very different things than the Channahon council will be doing and should receive the same amount of funding it always has from the village.
‘It’s a totally different animal,” Militello said of the Will County CED, “and with it comes lobbying efforts that we don’t have that are very, very expensive.”
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