Sluggish economy, lack of new homes likely to push Kaneland taxes up

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MAPLE PARK — Property owners in and around Elburn, Maple Park and Sugar Grove likely will owe more in property taxes next year.

On Monday, the Kaneland Community Unit School District 302 Board of Education will begin discussing the tax levy for the 2010-11 school year.

The levy plays a role in determining how much the school district can collect in real estate taxes from property owners within the district each year. That amount is also impacted by how many new homes and businesses have been built in the district the year before and what the estimated value of existing property might be.

And for 2010, the district is not anticipating those numbers to be in their favor.

Kaneland officials expect the estimated assessed value of property within the district to shrink in 2009, meaning the district will collect very little new money in 2010, said Julie Ann Fuchs, Kaneland's assistant superintendent for business.

Overall, the EAV for the district, which includes a large swath of western Kane County and a portion of DeKalb County, is expected to fall to about $886 million for 2009 from the $898.5 million collected in 2008. The district will not know the actual 2009 EAV – which is determined by Kane and DeKalb counties – until spring 2010.

The anticipated reduction has been fueled by two primary causes – slumping home values and very little new construction.

Fuchs said the district is anticipating just $5 million in new construction within the Kaneland region in 2009. If that estimate holds true, it would represent a decline of more than 76 percent in new construction compared to 2008, when $21.3 million in new construction was added to the district's EAV. And it would mark a 92 percent decline from 2006, when developers added $65 million in new construction to the Kaneland district.

The loss of EAV, coupled with sluggish economic times, means the district should expect to collect only about $240,000 more in 2010 than in 2009, with the levy request rising to a little more than $38 million.

And that, said Fuchs, means taxpayers should expect to see their tax rates increase, rising as much as 14 cents per $100 EAV from $3.98 per $100 EAV in 2009 to as much as $4.12 per $100 EAV in 2010.  Such a jump would mean that the owner of a home valued at $250,000 should expect to pay about $116 more in taxes.

"The tax rate will go up, most likely, unfortunately," Fuchs said. "And that means people can expect to pay a little more in taxes on homes that are not worth as much as they were."

The school board will take up the levy on Monday. However, the board will likely not vote on the matter until mid-December, following a hearing at which members of the public will have the chance to offer their thoughts.

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