Villa Park staff: 2.9% CPI cap could raise village portion of a sample homeowner's bill by $26.93

Director Micah told the Village of Villa Park Committee of the Whole that DuPage County certified the village's 2024 equalized assessed value (EAV) at $815,000,007.39 and that a 2.9% consumer-price-index cap used in the limiting-rate formula would allow the village to move toward the levy cap in the staff example.

Micah said she used an illustrative 2% estimated new-growth adjustment (producing an estimated EAV of $817,000,000) and ran the county's extension figures through the village's limiting-rate calculator. Using the 2.9% CPI input, Micah reported a sample limiting rate of 1.1331 and a sample village tax rate in the exercise of 0.6359.

Why it matters: the CPI cap is the conventional annual control used in the limiting-rate computation; if the village files for the CPI-based increase and county certification of new growth is consistent with the example, the levy authority could rise by roughly the CPI percentage. Micah showed how that percentage flows through each line item on a resident's bill and highlighted exceptions (police pension held level; fire pension rose ~5.61% based on the actuarial report).

In the staff example, a sample property with an equalized assessed value that, after the $8,000 homeowner exemption, yielded $73,073 resulted in a village portion of about $452.69 under the current rate; Micah said that amount would rise to $479.62 under the 2.9% example, an increase of $26.93. Micah also included the library levy (which files with the village): she reported the library share moving from $240.78 to $254.86, an increase of $14.08, for a combined village-plus-library increase of $41.02 for that example property.

Micah separated debt-service items and said the village's bond-related principal/interest obligations explain some increases: she cited a current bond-related amount of about $3,900,000 and said the next bond payment is $4,000,001.32 (a 5.17% increase versus the prior year); she also said the library bond payment declines in 2026, slightly offsetting other increases. Micah emphasized several times that the $2,000,000 new-growth figure and some spreadsheet totals were presented as staff's example calculations and are not county-certified final levy figures.

Trustee Kumar asked staff to enlarge the calculation sheet to make the tax-bill lines easier to read and noted that market (cash) value differs from assessed value when residents interpret their bills. Kumar summarized the example as "less than $50 in a year," thanking staff for the walkthrough.

There were no public comments. Director Micah moved to adjourn; a voice vote followed and the committee adjourned at 6:21 p.m. The regular stated meeting was scheduled to begin at 7:00 p.m.

Sources and limits: the presentation cited county extension reports and staff computations. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is the federal source for annual CPI used in municipal levy-limit calculations; the transcript referenced that CPI figure for 2024 as 2.9%. Some numeric totals shown on staff slides appeared inconsistent in the presentation copy; Micah described those as working examples rather than county-certified totals.