UNDERSTANDING YOUR PROPERTY TAXES

As homeowners begin paying their property taxes this summer, I wanted to take this opportunity to provide you with a brief overview of your property tax bill, and how DuPage County continues to provide critical services while maintaining our low tax rate. 

Since 1998, the DuPage County Board and I have reduced property taxes 7 of 10 years while at the same time maintaining public safety, ensuring strong human services programs and providing a quality of life that is second to none. Our efforts also helped fuel a strong local economy. In fact, more people commute daily to DuPage County than out of it, and we have the lowest unemployment rate in Chicagoland.  This quality of life, and our low tax rate, is what also makes DuPage both an attractive place to raise a family and to headquarter a business. 

We are able to provide this quality of life by doing more with less.  As you can see in the two pie charts listed below, the county's portion of your property tax bill for 2008 is below 2007 levels.   

In DuPage County, the property tax system is the primary source of revenue for our local schools and units of local government.  The amount of property tax revenue each taxing body levies directly affects property tax bill amounts.   It is important to note that general increases or declines of property values do not increase or decrease the actual amount of the property tax bills. 

A question many residents are asking this year is "why are my taxes not going down if my home value is decreasing?"  That is a great question, and one that I am eager to address. 

Unlike the majority of taxing bodies in our county who have sought the maximum tax increase allowed, your DuPage County government has historically opted to seek a minimal, if any, annual increase in their property tax revenue.  DuPage County levied a property tax of $56 million dollars for the 1998 tax year.  If the County had sought the maximum annual increase allowed by law each year, this levy would have grown to as much as $140 million in 2008.   In reality, the actual DuPage County property tax levy is now only $63 million.   

If a DuPage County property tax payer were to review the County's portion of their property tax bill over the last several years, the majority of taxpayers would find that even though the total bill amount has increased, the actual amount of tax associated with the County Government has decreased. 

Bob Schillerstrom
Chairman
DuPage County Board