A data tidbit, if you’re thinking of attending the City of Evanston final budget town hall meeting Thursday evening at 6 p.m. at the Ecology Center.
The total composite property tax rate paid by Evanston homeowners is in the middle of the pack among nearby communities that the city is frequently compared with.
The table below, compiled from the Cook County Clerk’s latest tax rate report, shows what tax rates were for 2020 tax bills payable in 2021 — and what the typical tax bill would be for a home valued at $300,000 in each of those communities.
The rates include the total tax levied by all taxing districts — not just the municipality, but also school districts and other taxing bodies.
The dollar amounts assume a home with a market value of $300,000 that was assessed at 10% of that market value and then had the state equalization factor of 3.2234 applied to the assessment.
They don’t include homeowners or other tax exemptions that might be applied to an individual property.
One limitation of this comparison is that median home values vary widely from one community to the next, and so a home with a given size and feature set in one town may be worth considerably more or less than a similar home in another community.