Politics & Government
It's Official: Library District Residents Get Some Tax Relief
Tuesday's $152,000 property tax abatement will save the owner of a $300,000 home about $14—not a huge amount, but a nice lift in a struggling economy, officials say.
Homeowners in the District will get about $14 worth of relief on their property tax bills for each of the next three years, thanks to some fancy financial footwork by the library’s Board Of Trustees.
The tax change was made official on Tuesday during the Library Board's regularly scheduled meeting.
“Fourteen dollars is not a huge amount, but I don’t know of any taxing body that’s giving anything back to the taxpayers these days,” said Library Director George Scheetz.
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Last October, trustees voted to refinance about $8.8 million in construction bonds issued in 1998 and 1999. Those bonds paid for the library’s current building at 10 S. Batavia Ave., which opened in 2002. Residents approved the bond sales by referendum in Nov. 1998.
The lower interest rate the library district received for the refinanced bonds will reduce the total interest on the bonds by about $475,000, Scheetz said. Board members voted Tuesday to abate $152,000 of the original $705,169 bond payment levy for 2010, which will appear on property tax bills this June. The abatement will save the owner of a $300,000 house about $14.
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The board plans to abate about $150,000 of the levy in each of the next two years as well, then abate the remainder of the interest savings over five years. The bonds are scheduled to be paid off in 2018.
“We decided to front-load the abatements because the economy is in a difficult situation,” Scheetz explained. “All the interest savings are going to be rebated—none of it is going to the library.”
