LaSalle’s Finance Committee spent the bulk of its meeting reviewing a draft of the city’s 2025 tax-levy ordinance and pension funding recommendations from this year’s actuarial evaluation.

Financial Director John Duncan outlined last year’s levies and a draft plan to adjust them. He said the town levied $625,000 for the general fund, $35,000 for audit, $40,000 for IMRF, $300,000 for the library, $120,000 for the fire pension and $2,100,000 for the police pension in the prior cycle. In his draft for the coming year he proposed a modest $10,000 reduction to the general fund levy, leaving many smaller levies unchanged and increasing the library levy from $300,000 to $320,000 as part of a 10–12 year plan to move the library toward sustainability.

Duncan said the actuarial analysis prompted recommended contribution increases for both pensions. He summarized the fire pension’s position as roughly $4.2 million in accrued liability against about $3.5 million in assets — “about 82% funded” — and said the committee’s objective remains roughly 90% funding over several years. For the police pension he reported accrued liability of $28.7 million and assets of $14.1 million, or roughly 48% funded, up about 4 percentage points from last year.

The third-party actuaries recommended roughly $157,000 for the fire pension based on their payroll estimate (about 37% of payroll in their calculation) and recommended $1.8 million for police (about 99.78% of the actuaries’ payroll estimate). Duncan told the committee he expects actual payroll figures to be higher than last year’s captured payroll and recommended considering approximately $175,000 for the fire pension and $2.2 million for the police pension in the draft levy worksheet to keep the town from falling behind as staffing returns to fuller levels.

“...if we did it this way, we would be under the 5% and not need a truth in taxation hearing,” Duncan said, explaining the draft is designed to limit the overall levy increase.

Committee members pressed for clarification of the percent-of-payroll figures and the target funding horizon. Duncan said the actuarial schedule is modeled to reach full funding within the actuarial horizon (noted in the discussion as the 2040 timeframe), and he described a multi-year approach that leans on early over-contributions and investment returns to improve long-term funded ratios.

Duncan also reviewed how IMRF appears on the levy (a $40,000 levy amount that covers only general-fund employees), existing bonds and loans (some carried as zero on the levy because they are not being taxed now), and that wastewater treatment plant debt is paid from sewer rates rather than the tax levy.

The committee did not take a formal vote on the levy. Duncan asked members to review the draft and return questions over the next two weeks so the ordinance can be placed on the agenda at the next meeting for final action and transmittal to the county.

What’s next: The committee scheduled the levy for further review and a vote at the next meeting, with staff offering to provide further detail on payroll projections, actuarial assumptions and any requested deep dives before the final vote.