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Council votes against placing levy on November ballot
Village council unanimously voted against placing a 2-mill additional levy on the November ballot.
Council, however, did proceed Tuesday with a second reading of a 2-mill renewal levy that will appear before voters Nov. 6.
The 2-mill renewal levy generates $109,515 annually for the village’s general fund and costs the owner of a $100,000-valued home $58.71 annually.
Councilman David Raspanti said Tuesday’s decision came as a result of new information.
“The information that we had when we started the process, it was not the same information that we had when the process was over,” Raspanti said.
The village’s finance committee began mulling possible levies in May.
Since then, the village has learned it received $164,190.98 in estate – or inheritance – tax money and was not awarded a grant for street paving, freeing up $65,000 that had been earmarked as a match for that grant, said Clerk-Treasurer Linda Srnec.
That roughly $229,000 of revenue from those two changes essentially wipe out the projected $200,000 spending deficit that the village was expecting this year, Srnec said.
Historically, the village has been able to use estate- tax money to offset spending deficits, but that will change next year with state lawmakers’ elimination of the estate tax.
“There’s no doubt the problem is not going away and that come next year, we’ll be faced with the same issue: a deficit spending budget,” Srnec said.
Raspanti said the estate- tax revenue and the grant information were the main factors in deciding not to pursue an additional levy.
“The most important message for the residents is we got lucky. ... It’s not like we solved the problem, and the same or similar problems will happen next year. We’re going to do what it takes to keep the village running as efficiently as possible,” he said.
Council President Joe Mazur again voted no Tuesday, after he was the only dissenting vote in the first reading of the additional levy, because he said he still opposes asking residents for new tax dollars when the village could have brought in a large chunk of money by leasing mineral rights for village-owned land.