Property tax rebates coming after Sycamore overtaxed residents

SYCAMORE – The almost $120,000 that Sycamore property owners were erroneously taxed this year will be returned via rebate checks in 2024, after city officials blamed the taxation error on an “administrative issue.”

A Daily Chronicle review of tax records found Sycamore overtaxed its residents by almost $120,000 on their 2022 city property tax bills, taxing them at a higher rate than what the City Council approved.

Sycamore residents asked the city to return the overpaid taxes at the first Sycamore City Council meeting of December. Then, at Monday’s meeting – at which no one spoke during the public comment portion – City Manager Michael Hall said the money would be returned to taxpayers and acknowledged the nature of the mistake.

No vote was needed Monday to initiate the tax rebate.

“After talking to legal, we’ve determined it is actually an administrative issue, and that we will be returning the $120,000, or $119,999.07, by check to every single parcel that paid last year,” Hall said.

City officials in November, the morning after the Chronicle began asking about its findings, blamed the overtaxation on a “clerical error.”

The Daily Chronicle review, through public records requests, revealed the city levied property taxes at a higher rate – 0.7% instead of the approved 0.68% rate – for 2022 property tax bills, paid in 2023. Instead of bringing in the expected additional revenue of $600,000, the city brought in $719,991, about $120,000 more than elected officials approved, according to DeKalb County documents.

Hall – who said he didn’t crosscheck the property tax levy that was approved in December 2022 when working on the city’s budget four months later – said he initially was hesitant to ask for the City Council’s approval for a tax rebate in November because he worried it could cost the city more than what was overtaxed.

That changed after some help from DeKalb County officials, he said.

“At first, the administration of how do we return [the overtaxed money] seemed like a difficult task going forward,” he said. “In actuality, we received a file from [DeKalb] County, from [DeKalb County Treasurer] Becky Springer, and she was extremely helpful in giving us this information and gave us all the data that we needed in order to figure out how to do that.”

Sycamore Finance Director Kristian Dominquez will be responsible for tabulating what each taxpayer is owed and sending out the appropriate rebate checks, a task Hall said will be completed no later than Aug. 1.

City officials said the average rebate check for Sycamore residents is estimated to be between $10 and $20, but some business owners may be owed more.

First Ward Alderperson Alan Bauer said Monday that the overtaxation “needed to be fixed,” while 4th Ward Alderperson Ben Bumpus asked what systems and procedures the city is establishing to prevent future overtaxation debacles.

Hall said adjusting the city’s fiscal year to align with the calendar year – something that was approved a year ago – will help the city prevent repeating this year’s error. The finance department also now will take a leading roll in double-checking the financial numbers on city documents, the city manager said.

“The finance department is now going to be checking all financial ordinances that are in place,” Hall said. “So a lot of times we pre-fill ordinances with data and information, and then when there are amendments that come up – that’s where it fell through. But also, just to make sure, that’s being double-checked by finance, which it wasn’t in the past, to make sure that was checked when amendments come at the last minute, which is what happened last time.”