School Property Tax Update

Upcoming property tax bills will reflect changes in local school district moves. From the News-Gazette today:

Coming property-tax bills include first bump for Champaign schools
The first financial sting from the Champaign school district’s building improvement plans will be arriving in mailboxes soon.

Bills for 2017 property taxes — payable this year— are set to go out April 30, and they’ll give Champaign taxpayers their first look at how much $183.4 million in bond issues approved in a 2016 referendum will actually cost them.

In simplest terms, expect to pay about an additional 76 cents for every $100 of assessed valuation over last year.

That’s based on a Unit 4 2017 tax rate of $5.0299 per $100, compared to its 2016 rate of $4.2704 per $100, according to numbers supplied by the county clerk’s office.

On a $150,000 house with the standard homeowner exemption, the higher Champaign school rate will mean about $334 more in school taxes over last year, or about $28 more a month...

 The new, higher tax rate for Champaign schools closes at least some of the gap between Champaign and Urbana school tax rates.

Urbana’s 2017 school tax rate, set at $5.9684, is a bit over 4 cents per $100 more than its 2016 rate, and will cost the owner of a $150,000 Urbana home about $19 more than the previous year.

The Urbana school rate — traditionally higher than the Champaign school rate because so much property in the Urbana school district is tax-exempt — is about 94 cents-per-$100 higher than the Champaign school district’s rate, even with the Champaign school bonds factored in.

Better news for Urbana taxpayers is they can look forward to a school tax decrease next year, with payments on an Urbana school bond issue nearing an end.

Full article here.