Belleville’s property taxes are expected to go up. Here’s where the money is going.
When Belleville residents get their property tax bill this summer, they can expect to see an increase as part of the city’s effort to meet a state mandate on funding pensions for police officers and firefighters.
The city estimates that a person with a $100,000 home may have to pay about $805 in Belleville municipal taxes this year, an increase of about $31 from last year’s bill of about $774. This estimate is based on someone taking the owner-occupied exemption.
“It’s very much an estimate,” Finance Director Jamie Maitret said, because the city has not yet received all of the data needed to tell residents what the increase will be.
This estimate is based on last year’s equalized assessed valuation, or EAV, of all the property in the city. Belleville is still waiting to get this year’s assessment from St. Clair County. Maitret said it’s possible that the property valuation in the city will rise slightly, which would mean the property tax increase in Belleville would be lower than the estimate.
Pension funds
Most of the revenue from property taxes in Belleville goes toward the pension funds set up for police officers and firefighters.
The City Council recently approved an $11.77 million tax levy request, which is the amount of property tax funding the city wants for the next fiscal year that begins on May 1.
This tax levy request is about a 4 percent increase from last year’s tax levy of $11.33 million.
Under this year’s plan, $7.27 million, or about 62 percent, of Belleville’s property tax revenue will go toward the police and firefighter pension funds.
The firefighter pension fund is due to get $3.67 million and the police officer pension fund is due to get $3.6 million.
“The property tax does not go towards any police or fire salaries or towards equipment. It does not go toward road repairs,” Mayor Mark Eckert said.
Eckert said there is a common misconception that property tax revenue is used to pay for city services or fix streets.
Instead, the city uses other revenue sources to pay the day-to-day costs of running the city. These sources include sales tax, income tax and utility tax revenue.
Pension shortfall
The police and firefighter pension funds have a combined shortfall of $71.1 million, according to the most recent audit of the city’s finances.
The police pension is 54.68% funded and has a liability of $35.6 million while the firefighter pension is 46.64% funded and has a liability of $35.5 million, the audit shows.
These two pension funds have a shortfall in part because for decades city leaders did not give the funds as much money as they should have, Eckert said.
“We’re still trying to get caught up,” Eckert said. “For so many years, God bless our city fathers, but they took the attitude, ‘Oh, that’s a long time away, we don’t have to spend that much right now.’”
Eckert also noted that retirees are living longer than expected.
In the late 1990s, the state mandated that cities start making payments necessary to fund the police officer and firefighter pensions, Eckert said.
City leaders have been asked if they could terminate the pension plan as many private businesses have done and instead offer another type of retirement funding such as a 401(k) plan but Eckert and Maitret said the City Council is not allowed by state law to make such changes.
“We cannot make those changes at our level,” Maitret said. “This is all state mandated.”
“If there’s going to be changes made for future generations of police or firefighters or anyone, it has to be done at the state level.”
As of the latest city audit, there were 73 retirees or beneficiaries receiving payments from the firefighter pension fund and 87 from the police officer fund.
Eckert said the police officers and firefighters face a “risk every day” they report to duty.
“Those folks who serve deserve and their families deserve to know that those pensions will be intact when they get ready to claim them.
“We’re trying to do the right thing.”
Property tax revenue
Here’s a breakdown of some other planned uses of property tax revenue in Belleville:
▪ $1.29 million for the library.
▪ $730,000 for the Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund
▪ $700,000 for tort liability
▪ $669,000 for Social Security payments.
▪ $450,000 for health insurance
▪ $380,000 for playground funding
▪ $290,600 for the General and Community Assistance Program, which conducts services previously handled by the former Belleville Township.
This story was originally published February 4, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
