The city of Galesburg’s attempt to avoid an increase to property tax bills could indirectly put financial strain on the Galesburg Public Library.
That’s according to Martin Reichel, treasurer of the Galesburg Public Library Board of Trustees, who has asked the city to fully fund its 2025 budget request of $1,987,850, or a 4.90% increase from 2024.
City administration countered with a 2.66% increase to the library’s 2024 budget request. That would result in a Library Levy of $1,945,431, or a $50,408 increase rather than the $100,134 increase requested.
Reichel addressed Galesburg aldermen during the public comment portion of Monday’s City Council meeting, saying, “I respectively ask that you put the money back in that you took out.”
“My point here is to see the City Council return the money that was taken out of our budget,” Reichel said. “We’re really in desperate need of it. The library was built without local taxpayer dollars, so you should still have some change left in your pockets.
“I respectively ask that you put the money back in that you took out.”
Library official says ‘vagrants’ camp out at new facility
Reichel said much of the shortfall from the budget request was earmarked to hire part-time security to combat what the library official described as “vagrants” and “homeless people” that congregate and “camp out” at the new library.
He said the subjects are causing negative issues for both library staff and patrons.
“We set our budget in order to meet the challenges of the new building, and also another factor is we wanted to hire part time security because of the vagrants that are camping out on library grounds and entering the building, and in some cases harassing the staff,” Reichel said. “So, that’s the money they cut out of our budget.
“We’re hoping that they will reinstate it and everything will be fine, but we’ll see about that.”
Galesburg City Manager Eric Hanson said Monday that while the Library Levy is only a portion of the total city levy, the city believes treating both governmental entities the same is the fairest approach.
Galesburg Mayor Peter Schwartzman, speaking at Monday’s meeting, asked Hanson what the impact would be if the city awarded the library its full budget request.
Hanson noted the Corporate Levy that funds parks and recreation and general operations of the city has absorbed a $77,000 reduction in order to meet the obligation request.
“We treated the library’s request the same as the city’s, at the same percentage,” Hanson said Monday. “It wasn’t some arbitrary number to cut them by a certain amount of money. It was to treat both the city and the library fairly, and to give them an equitable portion of the increase.
“To fully fund the library’s request would cause the property tax rate to go up.”
Library budget has increased nearly 20% past four years
Ward 5 Council member Heather Acerra noted the library appears to have received a significant amount of increases to its budget over the last few years. Hanson said the total increase to the library budget has been roughly 18.9% over the past four years.
“The Council will have to be conscious of the fact we will have a hard time sustaining 20% increases to the levy every four years,” Hanson said.
Reichel tells WGIL the library board was caught off guard by the city’s plan to not fully fund it’s levy request.
“In the past, it’s never been a problem,” he said. “We would submit our budget to the city, and the City Council would approve it, and that would be the end of it. We were advised to never exceed the 5% growth in the property tax, so we would always stay under that.
“It caught us off guard. We handed our budget in plenty early, and they could have looked it over and come to us and said we need to do something to reduce the property tax rate, and we would have worked with them. But nobody did anything except to send us an email stating our amount is going to be reduced.”
City manager: ‘We’re trying to not raise tax rate’
Annually, the City Council establishes a dollar amount needed from property tax extensions by the Knox County Clerk. This amount is then aggregated with other taxing districts resulting in individual tax bills on individual property. The City should receive the majority of the money collected from this levy in June and September of 2025.
The 2024 tax levy request has been established at $10,453,414 which is an increase of 2.66% when compared to the total amount of the current year tax levy (2023) extension.
Based on the current Estimated Assessed Value (EAV) for the 2024 tax levy, the estimated property tax rate for the City would be approximately $2.433 or $0.010 less than the 2023 tax levy rate. The property tax rate is applied to individual tax bills.
The property tax levy will fund a portion of the City’s General Fund and Park & Recreation Fund general operations; IMRF obligations in the General Fund; the majority of the Public Library’s general operations; and the police pension and firefighters’ pension funds.
Although still below the board’s request, Hanson said the allotted amount does provide additional funding for the library operations. He also reiterated that in order to achieve the target and to provide additional funds to the library, the City General Fund levy has to be reduced by $77,263 (2.9%).
Hanson tells WGIL, “A lot of tax bills went up last year, and many of the Council members have expressed to me they didn’t want the tax rate to go up. Therefore, the staff needed to find a recommendation that made sure that tax rate didn’t increase.
“Like I said Monday, we’re trying to treat the library and the various city entities equitably, and we’re trying to not raise the tax rate.”
