The search for Evanston’s ‘peers’

Evanston’s Finance and Budget Committee this week identified seven communities that share similarities to our town and that may provide points of comparison for future budget discussions.

Michael Van Dorpe, a financial analyst for the city, started with a list of 40 communities of roughly similar size and relatively close to Evanston. After considering a variety of factors outlined in his memo to the committee, he ended up recommending seven:

• Arlington Heights
• Bloomington
• Des Plaines
• Oak Park
• Palatine
• Park Ridge
• Skokie

The summary matrix Van Dorpe used appears at the end of this story. Except for Bloomington, all the communities included are in Cook County. Bloomington made the list as the closest town of similar size to Evanston with a large university.

Evanston Now took its own look at the data for the seven recommended communities, and here’s what we came up with.

Arlington Heights and Bloomington have populations that are very close to the 78,110 recorded for Evanston in the 2020 U.S. Census. The other communities range from 13% (Palatine) to 49% (Park Ridge) smaller.

Van Dorpe’s analysis looked at the percentage of each community’s non-Hispanic white population. But Ald. Devon Reid (8th) criticized that as not necessarily accurately reflecting the share of residents who are members of disadvantaged groups.

Evanston Now instead looked at the poverty rate in each community and found that Arlington Heights and Bloomington have poverty levels very close to the 11.9% reported for Evanston, while the other communities had significantly lower poverty levels — less than half Evanston’s poverty rate in the case of Park Ridge.

We found that median household income in Skokie was nearly the same as the $97,144 reported for Evanston. Most of the others were relatively close — except for Bloomington, with a 30% lower median income, and Park Ridge, with a 42% higher median.

The median home value in Arlington Heights was almost exactly the same as the $394,981 reported for Evanston. Other communities ranged from 42% less in Bloomington to 21% higher in Park Ridge.

To try to get at how much aging infrastructure a community might need to replace in coming years, Van Dorpe looked at the year the community was incorporated. But many of the communities in the list, while incorporated in the 19th century, remained very small until after World War II.

Evanston Now looked instead at the community’s population growth since 1920 and how that compared to Evanston’s growth during the same period.

Oak Park was the only community on the list that has seen proportionately less population growth than Evanston since 1920. All the others have seen much more growth — and thus may have a smaller percentage of century-old water and sewer lines to replace than Evanston.

Differences in population density affect the look of a community — the ratio of single-family homes to multi-unit apartment buildings — and can affect the cost of delivering services in a variety of ways.

Only Oak Park among the communities on the list has greater population density than Evanston.

Now here’s what you’ve been waiting for — how do taxes compare.

For that we turned to the Cook County Clerk’s Tax Agency Reports and found that the Equalized Assessed Valuation per capita in Arlington Heights was almost the same as the $48,018 reported for Evanston.

Palatine had 50% more EAV per capita — meaning it could generate more revenue from a lower tax rate — while Oak Park’s EAV per capita was 30% lower than Evanston’s, meaning Oak Park taxpayers would have to pay more to cover the same level of spending.

To calculate the property tax paid per capita, we looked at municipal tax levies, excluding special service areas, plus the levies from park districts, library boards and related entities that shared the community’s name. We excluded school district levies and levies for any county-wide taxing bodies.

We found that Park Ridge’s property tax burden per capita was very close to the $739 in Evanston, while Oak Park’s was 67% higher.

It’s important to note that property taxes are only one of many sources of revenue for municipal governments.

Committee members, while accepting the seven proposed peer communities, indicated they’re still looking for other towns to add to the list.

If you’ve got suggestions, you could add them in the comment section.