Wilmette SD 39 board adopts $68.7 million 2024 tax levy after staff presentation

The Wilmette Public Schools Board of Education adopted a $68,665,465 tax levy for 2024 at its Nov. 18 meeting following a public hearing and a staff presentation on the district’s revenue assumptions and required disclosures.

Cori Bolte Meyer, the district presenter, told the board the applicable Consumer Price Index (CPI) factor for 2024 is 3.4 percent and that the district’s estimated new-property-growth figure (using the 10‑year average) is $15,950,000. She said staff estimates the district’s 2024 limiting rate at about 3.553 percent and that existing taxpayers should typically see an increase equal to the 3.4 percent CPI factor.

Meyer also reviewed the comparative columns the district files with Cook County — showing the CPI-only increase, CPI plus the district’s average new-growth estimate, and the district’s actual levy request — and disclosed required cash and investment balances, reporting the district held just over $52 million in cash and investments in May.

During the meeting there were no speakers from the public at the levy hearing. After the presentation and the hearing, a board member moved to adopt the levy; the motion included line-item levy amounts read into the record: Educational $54,054,978; Operations and Maintenance $10,315,664; Transportation $955,154; Working Cash $40,454; IMRF $233,732; Social Security $1,712,535; Tort Immunity $847,278; Special Education $505,670, for a total aggregate levy of $68,665,465. The clerk called the roll and the motion carried.

The board’s action consummates the district’s formal levy filing for 2024; Cook County will process the levy and compute statutory adjustments it is required to make (the presentation noted a Senate Bill 508 adjustment and county-calculated debt-service items that do not require board action). The board’s next procedural steps were not contested at the meeting.