Peoria Standard

The city council of East Peoria approved the 2022 tax levy which is expected to collect $5.9 million for the city.

During the Dec. 6 council meeting, Commissioner Mark Hill provided board and community members with an overview of how the money will be distributed throughout various city funds and needs. Hill explained $332,000 will go into the general corporate fund, $95,000 to emergency services ESDA, $250,000 to municipal retirement, just under $1.7 million to fire pension, $1.8 million is police pension, $140,000 to street lighting, $500,000 to Social Security, $1 million to workman’s comp, and $16,000 to unemployment insurance.

“That’s what the tax levy, the property tax money is appropriated for,” Hill said at the meeting. “And that's before we've done any garbage picker, paid any employees, any fire, any place. So that's where our property tax money goes to today.”

The 2022 tax levy has to be finalized and submitted to the county by the last Tuesday of December as this was the last council meeting for the year. The city collected about $5.6 million last year and the only reason for the increase this year is due to county EAV changes and some taxes from new property that haven’t been taxed by the village yet.

The commissioners discussed their concern over the lack of funding to the street department from the levy because they have a lot of necessary projects. The city council uses its motor tax fuel revenue for road projects and has at least $1 million to spend in the next year, along with monies from other areas. The city is in a much better financial position for capital improvements than 10 years ago.