Elmhurst Committee Wants to Make Property Tax Rebates Available to More Residents

Elmhurst aldermen pushed a proposal Monday to open the city's property tax rebate program to .

The program, which rebates the year-prior property tax increase for certain residents, currently applies to those making 50 percent of the median household income in DuPage County. On Monday, the City Council's Finance, Council Affairs and Administrative Services Committee endorsed raising elibility to 60 percent of that median household income.

Under the committee's approved report, a four-person household earning $44,880 would now be eligible, up from that same family earning $37,400.

"The number we used was so low that it wasn't touching that group of people who had lived here a tremendous amount of time," 7th Ward Alderman Mark Mulliner said. "The dollars we'll lose as a city is nominal ... to help the people who helped build this community."

Mulliner added that the new eligibility requirements are similar to those for the National School Lunch Program, which gives reduced-price lunch to children in four-person DuPage County families earning about $41,000 a year.

"We're a little bit higher than (the National School Lunch Program)," he said. "But it's a level for us trying to assist the seniors."

First proposed by former Alderman Susan Rose when the City Council approved a hefty property tax levy in 2009, the rebate saved $5,500 for 26 residents in 2010.

Finance Committee Chairman Stephen Hipskind said the committee aims to review the program annually, but aldermen said the timing of the 2011 review was appropriate. Locally, residents are expected to send their second 2010 property tax payment this month, and nationally investors held their breath as the stock market tumbled Monday.

Elmhurst City Council is expected to vote on the new eligibility requirements Aug. 15.

Although raising eligibility was partly aimed at assisting those on fixed incomes, 5th Ward Alderman Scott Levin said the property tax rebate program is meant for all Elmhurst property owners with modest incomes.

"We have spoken about other kinds of rebate programs at other kinds of meetings, whether it's senior or disabled," he said. "This is the one that sort of cuts across all classes of people as need-based."