Peoria Public Schools’ chief financial officer recommends increasing the district’s tax levy for 2024.
Mick Willis explained his office’s proposal to the board of education at Monday night’s regular meeting. The estimated number presented to the board is about $77.8 million.
“That’s about a 3% increase over what was extended officially for the [2023] year,” Willis told the board.
When financial professionals talk about an “extension,” they mean the amount of taxes actually received by an entity like the school district. A levy is the estimated amount of property tax revenue the entity is requesting for its annual operations.
For example, Peoria Public School’s 2023 tax levy was around $76.3 million, while the extension was about $75.6 million. Willis said this year’s increase is a result of anticipated growth of the property value in Peoria County.
“We’ve had continual increases in our assessed value for the tax year '24, the county estimates that values will approach about an 8% increase,” Willis said. “So we factored that into our estimates of levy.”
Willis said the change represents about a 3% increase over 2023’s extension; to satisfy Illinois’ Truth in Taxation laws, the district has to check that the increase, without counting taxes that will be allotted for bonds, is less than 5%.
“The proposed change that we’re recommending is 4.96% of what was extended last year,” said Willis.
As a result, the district won’t have to go through additional Truth in Taxation required steps before the board can vote on the new levy. The board will have one more tax levy hearing and then vote on the resolution during the Monday, Dec. 9 meeting.
That resolution vote also will include three abatement resolutions related to bonds the district sold in 2016 as part of the establishment of a county facility sales tax. Willis said some of the repayment of those bonds will be taken care of by the revenue that comes from that sales tax, rather than the property tax levy.
According to Willis’ presentation, local property taxes account for roughly 23% of District 150’s operating funds revenue.
