How does the Board decide how much to levy?
Each fall the Board of Education must decide on a tax levy for the following school year. The levy consists of the amount of money the School District asks the County Clerk to raise in property taxes to fund the operation of the School District. In preparing the levy, every attempt is made to assure that the District will receive all tax dollars available under the tax cap. Should the District fail to capture all of the available revenue, the District will lose the opportunity to recapture those funds in subsequent years. In the end, the District will only receive the dollar amounts allowed under the tax cap formula. This formula uses figures that are not known to us at the time that the levy must be prepared, namely, the total Equalized Assessed Valuation (EAV) of all property in the District for the current year, and the new construction in the District. These values are not known until the April following the December in which we have to prepare the levy. So each fall, the levy for
