1 Percent ≠ 0 Percent

You’ve probably heard the following statement countless times before, and some candidates are repeating it over and over: “Arlington Heights has enjoyed five straight years of 0% property tax increases.”

The only problem: It’s false!

Here are the facts:

• The 2018 property tax levy was $36,558,363
• The 2019 property tax levy was $36,923,947
• The 2020 property tax levy was $37,293,156
• The 2021 property tax levy was $37,666,000, and
• The 2022 property tax levy was $38,043,000

You can look up those figures in the budget reports published on the village’s web site. (Just remember that the figures always appear one year off, i.e., the 2022 property tax levy appeared in the 2023 budget, etc., just as we paid the 2022 property taxes in 2023.)

So, what gives?

You can easily calculate that the property tax levy went up by exactly 1% each of the above years. That’s no coincidence. Every year, the village tells the county how much property tax to collect from residents. The amount asked for reflects the fact that the county won’t be able to collect every last dollar. In other words, the village asks for more than it really intends to receive. The difference—you guessed it—is (or rather, was) 1%. In other words, in order to collect the 2018 property tax levy of $36,558,363, the village asked for $36,923,947, and so on. Ok, that seems reasonable. (The higher amount, by the way, is called the “extended levy.”)

The issue, the lack of transparency really, is that the two measures are apples and oranges, and you can’t compare one to the other. But that’s exactly what the official village disclosures have done for years. For decades, even.

Here’s an analogy. If I go to Jewel and all I buy is a gallon of milk that costs $3.00, then I’ll pay $3.30 at the register because I’m charged 10% in sales tax on top of the price of milk. Fine, no issue there. But if I go back a week later and the sticker price of milk is now $3.30, can the store manager tell me that there was a 0% increase in the price of milk because, after all, the $3.30 I was charged last week equals the sticker price of $3.30 this week? No, of course not!

Yet that’s exactly what happened with our property tax disclosures, year after year.

Until two years ago, that is. That’s when the village changed the way it shows the tax increases. Why? Because I went to numerous board meetings and requested it to be changed. And I’m glad to say, village staff listened!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining about the 1% increases. Even a 1% increase is very low and qualifies as “fiscally responsible.” That’s not the point.

The point is transparency. It’s about honesty in what we tell our residents. And it’s about my campaign promise to dig into the numbers on behalf of the village’s residents.

By the way, when I discussed this with the village’s since retired finance director, he said “You’re not wrong, Martin, but good luck explaining this to the public. They won’t understand it.”

Well, you be the judge.