Evanston’s City Council holds a “truth in taxation” hearing Monday night on an updated proposed 2023 budget that leaves property tax rates essentially unchanged.
The original proposed budget, released Oct. 10, had called for a 4% property tax hike, but the revised budget calls for an almost imperceptible tax decrease of just 0.02%.
The bulk of the tax reduction stems from simply increasing the projected reduction in general fund personnel costs resulting from the lag time involved in filling vacant positions from 2% to 4%.
The rest of the savings result from some adjustments to the number of new positions added to the budget.
The proposed budget revisions trim the city’s total projected 2023 spending from $402.4 million to $400.3 million.
They do nothing to address calls from at least one council member to increase funding of public safety pensions nor to they shift the city’s funding priorities to address the growing backlog of maintenance needs for city facilities.
The City Council is scheduled to vote on introduction of the budget and the accompanying tax levies at Monday’s meeting.
Final budget adoption is anticipated at the Council’s Nov. 21 meeting.
The city should make do with the high taxes it already levies.