At its Dec. 21 meeting, the Oak Park and River Forest High School Board of Education unanimously approved an increase of 4.36%, 3.5% if the value of new property in the district is not considered, in its annual property tax levy.
That’s an increase from the 3.96% levy increase approved last year, but only because the value of new property in the district is estimated to be higher this year. The total amount of the levy is $81,196,400.
The OPRF school board will levy 1.5% less than it is allowed to by law. The base rate of the levy increase is 3.5%, the same as it was last year. Tax cap laws in Illinois limit a levy increase to a maximum of 5%, plus the value of new property, or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower, so the maximum OPRF could levy this year is 5% plus an allowance for the value of new property coming on to the tax rolls. For the past decade, OPRF has been levying less than the maximum allowed by law in an attempt to bring down a cash reserve that reached nearly $130 million in 2013.
“Since that time, this is now our 11th consecutive levy where we have not taken the max when you add in all the different levy components,” said OPRF District 200 School Board President Tom Cofsky in a telephone interview with the Wednesday Journal.
Cofsky said that despite some steep increases in transportation and health care costs, the district can maintain the base 3.5% levy increase of recent years.
“We have committed to or planned on a three-and-a-half-percent increase, and we are able to stay with that,” Cofsky said. “The norm in schools is to take the maximum levy and that was the norm in District 200 when I joined the board in 2013.”
The district is accepting the levy adjustment for prior year refunds or appeals for the first time this year. The amount of the levy adjustment is $516,132, and that amount was factored into the estimated $137 increase in taxes for the owner of a $400,000 home, officials said.
Property taxes account for nearly 80% of revenues for OPRF. In September the school board approved a budget which projects operating expenses, before building maintenance and construction costs, of just over $86 million and revenues of just over $94.4 million. About $6.2 million of that surplus is expected to be used for the initial expenses for Project 2, the estimated $102 million plan to tear down and reconstruct the southeast portion of the school. Construction work on Project 2 is expected to start this summer.
The district projects that its cash reserve at the end of the 2023-24 fiscal year will be approximately $62.5 million, which is about 73% of annual operating expenditures. That cash reserve is projected to be whittled down to about $36.5 million, or 38% of annual operating expenditures, by the end of the 2026-27 fiscal year as cash reserves are used to pay for about $44.2 million of the cost of Project 2. OPRF is also expected to borrow about $45.3 million to pay for Project 2 and get about $12.5 million in charitable contributions for Project 2. That borrowing, which has not yet begun, will be in the form of debt certificates which will be paid back out of the regular tax levy.
Correction: Jan. 5, 2024 1:48 p.m.: This article was updated to reflect the nature of the levy adjustment. It is s $516,132. We apologize for the error.