Manteno OKs garbage, property tax rebates - for now

MANTENO – Manteno homeowners have enjoyed the benefit of having their local property taxes and garbage fees paid for by the village for a number of years.

Although the Manteno Village Board OK’d paying both for this coming year on Monday, the perks might eventually come to an end or at least be reduced.

“It’s obviously not sustainable forever, as [the garbage fee] goes up each year again,” Village Administrator Chris LaRocque said.

When the village sold the sewer system to Aqua for $25 million in 2017, it decided to use some of the proceeds to pay for homeowner’s garbage fees. Paying the garbage fees had cost the village about $600,000 annually, but now it’s almost $700,000.

“It’s not a whole lot out of everybody’s individual budget, but for the village, it’s a pretty significant amount of money,” LaRocque said. “So at some point, we will probably have to look at either cutting it to 50% or reducing it even more, or just eliminating it and let the garbage service actually bill residents for the garbage collection.”

The village pays garbage fees for single-family and duplexes only, not apartment buildings, multi-unit and commercial properties.

Board member CJ Boudreau said it costs each individual household $291.04 a year in garbage fees.

“Obviously we want to keep doing that,” Boudreau said. “The tax rebates this will be, I believe, the third year, I think we’ve done it. That’ll cost the village about almost $1.3 million. So what I want to note about that is, obviously this ... cannot go on forever.”

Boudreau said he doesn’t mean to scare residents, but the village will have to make cuts somewhere eventually. Approximately $8 million remains in the coffers from the Aqua sale.

Manteno homeowners who have lived in their properties for the entire year of 2024 and it’s homestead exempt, can apply for a rebate of the village property taxes only. Once the application is completed after property taxes are paid in September, homeowners will receive a rebate check in December or early January.

In the future, Boudreau said the village might have to pay only 50% or 75% of the local property taxes.

“I just know that you all elected us to be fiscally responsible as a village, so we have to kind of make sure that we are doing our due diligence,” he said. “When we do decide to spend money on products and stuff, it is going to be worth it for our residents to do so.”

Boudreau said that it would help if the board could attract new businesses to move into Manteno.

“That’s how we make our money,” he said. “We get more businesses here, get more revenue, then we can keep these nice perks.”