Rockford homeowners see lowest property tax rate in a decade

Jun. 2—ROCKFORD — Another tax deadline looms.

Property owners in Winnebago County have until Friday to pay the first installment of their real estate tax bills.

While about 72% of tax bills in Winnebago County are up from last year, the increase is minimal, according to Winnebago County Supervisor of Assessments Tom Hodges.

"The median price change was 1.16%," Hodges said. "So half of all tax bills did not go up by 1.16% and the other half did go up by more. The median increase was $40."

A variety of factors contribute to the amount your tax bill rises or falls in a given year, the most significant being how much the value of your property fluctuates. But, another component is how much taxing bodies decide to collect.

This year, six of the 11 government agencies that appear on most Rockford taxpayers' bills either kept their levy flat or raised it by less than 2%. Each of the other five agencies raised their levy between 2% and 3%.

That, combined with new growth and economic development that added to the tax base, resulted in a property tax rate that's the lowest it has been in a decade.

This year, taxpayers in tax code 001 — the tax code most Rockford property owners are in — will pay $12.86 for every $100 of a property's taxable value. The last time the rate was below $13 was in 2012, when it was $12.90. This is the lowest since 2011, when it was $12.18.

"It is a win and I would say the bigger win is that those taxing bodies like the city of Rockford, RPS 205, Winnebago County, Rockford Township, the park district and Rock Valley College for years took flat levies," Rockford Area Realtors CEO Conor Brown said. "That was incredibly important during the recession as property values were tanking and our rate was going up. As we have turned the corner the past four years or so and values have risen at a dramatic rate, we're now seeing the effects of that with the tax rate tumbling down."

State law permits government agencies to increase property taxes each year by the rate of inflation, plus the value of newly developed property.

Rockford Public Schools — which accounts for more than half of a city property owner's tax bill — chose not to include the rate of inflation in its 2020 levy, but did include the value of new development.

"The board's direction has been to keep the levy flat for the past eight or nine years, so we've done that," said Michelle Jahr, the district's chief financial officer. "Although we did include the new property in our levy, we are using that (revenue) for our facilities."

The district's tax rate, which was nearly $8 for every $100 of a property's taxable value in 2015, fell to $6.58 in 2020.

The school district and the city of Rockford each lowered its levy or kept it flat in eight of the last 10 years.

"For eight years we have kept our levy flat. Two of the last four years we have reduced our levy," Mayor Tom McNamara said in a statement. "This work by our Council, coupled with infrastructure investments, blight reduction efforts and new initiatives like Rockford Promise, have increased our property values and thus reduced our tax rate. In four years, our property tax rate has dropped 16%, going from 3.31 to 2.79. It's at its lowest rate in a decade."

The 11 government agencies that make up the majority of Rockford taxpayers' bills levied a combined $324,430,295 in real estate taxes in 2020 for bills due this year.

That's an increase of 1.2% compared to the 2019 levy.

The value of all property in Winnebago County rose by 5.3% to $5.09 billion during the 2020 tax year. The figure is about 8% below the county's peak of $5.5 billion reached in 2009, before the effects of the Great Recession began to show in assessor's calculations.

Property values in Winnebago County are expected to increase from 5.4% to 5.8% in 2021, according to Hodges.

"Looking at sales and primarily residential sales for the past three years, I would imagine that we're going to surpass that 2009 peak value in 2022," he said. "We've clawed back a lot of value from the low point in 2015. That's good for taxing districts and good for taxpayers."

Rising property values is a sign of a healthy community, Brown said.

"The fact that people are willing to make a significant investment in their homes and really plant roots in the Rockford region says something," he said. "We are still a very affordable market. You can get a lot of house for your money. We've been seeing that with a lot of buyers from the suburbs coming out here. They can have a large yard for their kids or their dogs. Things like that really speak to our strengths out here."

Ken DeCoster: [email protected]; @DeCosterKen

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