Evanston’s City Council finally adopted its record-breaking 2024 budget Monday night amid a debate over whether avoiding a property tax levy increase for yet another year in the face of massive revenue shortfalls is misleading residents about the financial state of affairs.
“It’s a gimmick,” Ald. Jonathan Nieuwsma (4th) said, warning that it would just lead to sharper property tax hikes in the future as the city runs out of budget reserves to tap.
Keeping the tax rate flat this year “provides a false sense of security” about the city’s finances, he added.
Ald. Melissa Wynne (3rd) added that imposing no property tax hike “is misleading the public.”
Revenue for the last few years was distorted by pandemic relief money that made it easy to hold the property tax hike to zero, Wynne said. Now the city needs to face the fact that it will need significant property tax increases in the future.
“This can’t be a normal course going forward,” she added.
The new budget calls for spending $22 million more than the city will take in in revenue — and making up the difference by drawing down reserves
Ald. Eleanor Revelle (7th) said she agrees with Nieuwsma and Wynne.
But Ald. Clare Kelly (1st) said there’s nothing “gimmicky” about not raising the property tax.
And Ald. Devon Reid (8th) agreed with her, saying there’s not a need to increase property taxes — just to boost overall revenue. He claimed to have ideas for new taxes that would hit non-residents rather than local property owners.
In the end the claim of keeping “the city” levy flat proved a bit of a gimmick anyway — since when the levy for the Evanston Public Library is added, the total levy for all city agencies still increases slightly — from $55.7 to $56.1 million.
That’s a boost of less than 1% — considerably reduced from the 7.9% increase included in the city manager’s original budget proposal, released just over two months ago.
Several weeks ago David Livingston, chair of the city’s Finance and Budget Committee raised concerns about the effort to hold the property tax levy steady.
He noted that share of the city’s general fund revenue generated by the general fund portion of the property tax levy has been generally declining for more than a decade.
We’ve updated the chart he presented then to show the impact of the tax levy adopted by the Council Monday night on that trend — and it shows a resumption of the downward slope.
Don’t worry — D65 and D202 will always raise taxes the maximum allowable amount each year (as they just did), so while the City of Evanston’s portion may remain stable (and has for the last few years), there’s still no property tax relief for homeowners given the school districts make up 70%+ of the tax anyways. (Yes, I realize the City of Evanston has more sources of revenue and also can raise taxes as much as they want down the road without a referendum, but just pointing out that the city’s tax levy is relatively small potatoes compared to the school districts).
I guess it is simply too much to ask for the City – like the rest of us – to live within its means and consider cutting spending.
My question is who is District 65 and District 202 accountable to for managing their finances? It seems to me that too much power with no accountability is wherein lies the constant money burn.
Why can’t we change that? Why can’t they create a self sustaining budget, that doesn’t allow for ballooning spending while enrollment is declining? There is no logic at all to how we are managing the never ending burn of funds, all while people continue to leave District 65, I mean parents sending their kids elsewhere. How is it that they are not reducing spending with per student costs declining with fewer students. Am I naive? Do I not understand the problem? Or am I too prudent and responsible? Please help me to see the light. As I see it, when you have cost overruns, you review your spending and look for ways to economize first.
What is the process of budgetary constraints employed by the School Districts?