The Oak Park and River Forest High School board voted 6-1 last week to approve a tentative tax levy of a little over $90.5 million which represents a 4.01% increase over last year. The board will hold a public hearing on the tax levy at its Dec. 3 meeting and is expected to approve the levy later that night.
The exact amount of the tentative tax levy is $90,568,000. That amount includes “recapturing” $850,000 that wasn’t levied in 2023 and 2024 when the school board levied less than the maximum amount allowed by law. Illinois law limits local governments, including school districts, from increasing their levy by more than the increase in the consumer price index or 5% whichever is less. But in 2022 a new law was enacted that allowed units of local governments, including school districts, to have a three-year period to “recapture” amounts that could have been levied in prior years but were not.
OPRF could have levied approximately $2.1 million that it did not in 2023 and 2024. Last year it recaptured $700,000 from that amount. This year the administration recommended, and the board approved, accelerating the recapture because next year’s CPI number is expected to be high and administrators and the board did not want to risk running up against the CPI tax cap. By recapturing $850,000 this year there will only be $350,000 available to recapture next year.
Without the recapture the increase in the tax levy would have been 3.13% and had the board decided to equalize its levy recapture the increase would have been 3.75%.
Board member Josh Gertz cast the only vote against approval of the tentative tax levy.
“I really don’t like the idea of a recapture,” Gertz told Wednesday Journal in a telephone interview. “While I understand that there’s an argument that it allows districts to take only the minimum amount that they absolutely need, I’m generally in favor of taking what we need, never going back, and if we need more than the (tax cap) limit then we go to referendum and let the voters decide.”
Proponents of the recapture said a big increase in special education costs made the recapture necessary.
The increase in the tentative tax levy is projected to cost the owner of a home worth $400,000 an additional $105 in annual property taxes. The increase would be $148 for the owner of home worth $550,000, $191 for a home worth $700,000, $234 for a home worth $850,000 and $277 for a home worth $1 million.
If the levy is approved the district is forecasting a surplus of just over $7.2 million in the 2027-28 school year. But the surplus is forecast to drop to $416,475 in the 2028-29 school year and the district is currently forecasting deficits in the $4.2 million range in the 2029-30 and 2023-31 school fiscal years.
Those projections have the administration looking to make significant budget cuts in upcoming years ranging from $1 million next year and $900,000 in the 2028-29 school year increasing to $4.8 million in the 2029-30 school year and $4.5 million in the 2030-31 school year.