JALC board lowers tax levy

CARTERVILLE - A tax-paying pessimist would say that the John A. Logan Board just lowered its tax levy. And that should mean a lower tax bill. Right?

No, probably not.

The college's levy is the percentage of your tax bill that will go to John A. Logan College as incoming property tax payments, the majority of its funding each year. And this year's levy is lower than last year's, but not by much.

Last year's was $0.61545; this year's is $0.61506. So, this year's is ever-so-slightly less, 39 percent of one cent less. That means if you're paying taxes on property with an equalized assessed valuation of $100,000, you should save 39 cents, theoretically.

But there are a lot of other factors that can affect property taxes, including changes in a taxing district's overall equalized assessed value, and in the assessed value of a property, and some bond issues. So a smaller levy may or may not translate into a smaller tax bill.

Brad McCormick, vice president of business services and college facilities, made the point during Tuesday's meeting that the college's levy was in keeping with the board's commitment "to not raise the levy rate."

McCormick also pointed out that the college's levy has remained basically the same since 2008, with only slight increases the last two years.

But still, the college has received fewer and fewer actual dollars from property tax revenue each year for about nine years. If those years had been good ones, with a robust local economy, the overall equalized assessed value of the taxing district would have increased. But that has not been the case in Southern Illinois recently. And as that value has fallen, so have the college's operating funds.

McCormick estimates "a loss of operating funds of $315,000 per year (since 2008) for the college."

"That's $2.1 million of local tax dollars that we don't have today," he told trustees at November's meeting.

Trustee Ray Hancock asked if any of that decrease in value could be caused by the establishment of a number of Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts, effectively lowering the amount of taxes coming in. "TIF districts are affecting the college's revenue," McCormick said. "We have twenty-six in our district.

Trustee Glenn Poshard noted the current dispute between the city of Cambria and its neighboring school districts over a TIF that the village is trying to establish, number 27 in the district if they're successful. "This TIF would set a precedent that would be a threat to the college's financial future." Poshard said.

After some give and take on the topic of TIFs, Trustee Jake Rendleman made a motion to certify the $9,597,478 tax levy for Community College District No. 530. It was seconded by Cheryl Graff and passed with one "no" vote from Rebecca Borgsmiller.</group><group id="12253020-CC1B-498C-A55B-63B7FFDD611B" type="seoLabels"><seoLabels></seoLabels></group></idf></inlineXML></contentS