Palatine Adopts 2012 Budget, Property Tax Reduction

The Palatine Village Council Monday adopted the 2012 budget and approved a slightly lower property tax levy.

The levy is the first reduction requested by the village since 1987. The total 2011 levy request of about .

“Residents should see no increase on their property tax bills based on the village tax levy request, unless the county raises the assessed value of properties,” said Palatine Village Manager Reid Ottesen.

The village of Palatine makes up only a portion of property tax bills. The village's levy request only impacts that small portion of the bill. Other governmental entities, such as school districts, make up the bulk of property tax bills.

“This is a true decrease in the amount of dollars collected from residents, with a baseline budget containing no increases without justification,” said Scott Lamerand, District 2 council member and head of the business, finance and budget committee.   

A nominal increase will be seen on water bills; the water rate will be increased from used by a household.

“We still are [among the] lowest water provider[s] and this increase ,” Lamerand said. “It will help fund the water system itself.”

All other fees, including refuse collection and other village fees, were not increased, Lamerand said.

The 2012 budget is about $105.8 million which represents a 3.40 percent increase compared to last year’s budget of $102.3 million. 

The budget does include a 1 percent cost of living salary increase for rank and file employees, in addition to police department personnel and individuals employed in public works.

Though management and executive leadership, including department directors, do not receive a cost of living increase, they can receive an up to 1 percent bump in pay based on performance.

Increases for the Fire Department still are being negotiated under collective bargaining.

There were costs the village had no control over, Lamerand said, including the blizzard of early 2011, storms in July and water and flooding issues stemming from those storms and others that followed.

On the flipside, the village did receive good news that an error was made by the state in sending hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales tax revenue to Buffalo Grove instead of Palatine.

The sales tax revenues were from the Arlington Toyota, which was previously in Buffalo Grove but moved to Palatine.

“We did see sales tax revenues go up, which helped us maintain the budget with minimal increases,” Ottesen said. “We are also down seven employees from last year.”

Palatine also was able to take $500,000 from the sale of land to the developer building the Mariano’s Fresh Market location on Hicks near Northwest Highway and apply it to state-mandated pension obligations.

“We are maintaining core services with a lower head count and resources,” Lamerand said.