Dupage Policy Journal

The Batavia city council recently passed final approval on several financial ordinances and went over the city's low tax rate.

During a Dec. 5 Batavia city council meeting, the council voted on the final approval for the city’s 2023 budget and the 2022 property tax levy. The 2023 budget was discussed at length at the Nov. 15 meeting and did not change since then. The total expenditures were $148,479,112. There was an additional $200,000 in revenues collected from a flat tax rate, which will be used for capital improvement projects.

The city council discussed how their finance department was able to keep the tax rate so low for so long. Compared to some neighboring communities, Batavia has a very low tax rate. Batavia Mayor Jeffrey Schielke recalled some other municipal officials who questioned how Batavia was able to have such low and peaceful tax rates in their community.

"I get to go to meetings with a lot of other mayors and this is a frequent question I get is what's the magic Batavia is doing out there that you were able to put that rate on your property tax bills for people? Because there are some places, specifically in the south suburbs, where the property tax is the only real revenue they got coming in and their property tax rates are just unbelievable as far as I can tell," Schielke said at the meeting. "I mean, if we had those in Batavia, we'd have this room full of protesters. These aren't very big towns, but they don't have any other revenues other than to tax the property and that's one of the advantages we have with the city administration."

The city council voted to accept the final version of the 2023 budget along with the 2022 tax levy. The levy totals $8,716,413 and the rate is .738 which is the same rate as the previous year, showing a 0% increase. The estimate for a homeowner whose house is worth $200,000 is about $448 for the year. The city also passed all the levies for the special districts in Batavia.