UPDATED 6 A.M. TUESDAY, NOV. 26:

YORKVILLE – Yorkville school officials are looking at more revenue for the school district with a new tentative property tax levy.

Yorkville School District 115 Board of Education members voted, 5-0, to approve the tentative property tax levy for the district during the school board meeting on Monday, Nov. 25 at the Yorkville High School library. School board members Shawn Schumacher and Jason Senffner were absent from the meeting.

Mindy Bradford, executive director of finance and operations for the school district, said the levy calculation for the school district is based on a combination of several factors. She said that includes the consumer price index, or CPI; the estimated equalized assessed value, or EAV, growth; new construction; and school district program needs.

Due to all of those factors, Bradford said, the district is looking at the levy increasing by a collective $2.1 million, which then gets split among all taxpayers based on their relative change in the EAV.

"The 1.9% CPI and then the $18 million of new construction [from Kendall and Kane counties] are really what's driving the increase," Bradford said.

Bradford said the anticipated total tax rate for the new levy is expected to be 6.9730, which is lower than last year's total tax rate at 7.1969.

If an existing property owner's particular EAV didn't change, Bradford said, that means they could see a 1.9% increase in the school district's portion of the property owner's property tax bill. If a property value increased by nearly 5% for a property that was valued at $250,000 last year, she said, the average effect felt for that homeowner is estimated to be about a $100 increase as a result of the tentative tax levy.

For a home valued at $200,000 last year, Bradford said, the average impact would be an increase of less than $100, along with an average increase of nearly $150 for a home valued at $300,000 last year.

However, Bradford said, it's always deceiving to talk about what the impact would be for an example like that.

"Because any individual homeowner can go up or down ... because it's factored based on your individual EAV as well," Bradford said. "But people get nervous, because people say 'Oh, well, my taxes went up. You told me in the paper that it was going to go up 'X' for a $200,000 home. I have a $200,000 home and it didn't go up 'X.' "

Bradford said something to consider is that, when taxing bodies choose not to take CPI, it has a compounding effect. If a taxing body doesn't take the CPI from last year, they permanently lose that revenue if they choose to not take CPI.

"We're taking what we are legally entitled to and we need that to cover increasing costs in the district, the primary cost being salaries and benefits that are increasing at a rate greater than CPI," Bradford said.

And by increasing salaries and benefits costs to the district, Bradford said, she is talking about contractual annual employee pay and benefits cost increases within the district.

The official levy presentation, which is set to be given by Bradford, and final approval for the levy is scheduled for Dec. 16. After the levy is adopted, it will be filed with the Kendall and Kane County clerks before the Dec. 30 deadline.

According to school district documents, adjustments to the levy may be made in late March 2020, when actual tax extension information will be known. Those figures are then verified by the Kendall and Kane County clerks before bills are mailed to taxpayers, with the first tax distribution normally being received at the end of May or beginning of June, the district documents said.

• This story has been updated to include school board action regarding the tentative tax levy during the school board's Monday, Nov. 25 meeting and to include examples of estimated average effects felt by property owners as a result of the tentative tax levy.