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2020/06/15 - Mayor's Column: Property Tax

­­­“An Open Door to O’Fallon”
A Weekly Note from Mayor Herb Roach
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This year’s property tax bills are now available to view on the St. Clair County website. Each year, when these documents are released, we begin to get a lot of questions about where your property taxes go and how they are spent.

When looking at your tax bills this year, please note that the taxes being paid in 2020 are for property owned in 2019.  You should also note that the taxes being paid normally go to one of four taxing bodies: Schools, Counties, Cities, or Townships. The example below is for an example property in the City of O’Fallon that also pays taxes to O’Fallon Township, St. Clair County, O’Fallon District 90, O’Fallon Township Highschool District 203, and Southwestern Illinois College (SWIC).

  • About 71% of your real-estate taxes go to schools (Southwestern Illinois College, OTHS & District 90).
  • About 13.5% goes to St. Clair County.
  • About 11.3% goes to the City of O’Fallon, this includes the Library, Fire Department, Emergency Medical Services.
  • About 4.4% goes to O’Fallon Township.

During the last three years, you may have seen your tax bills increase.  A portion of that may be due to St. Clair County’s reassessment of your property (which they do periodically) or a change in some of the tax rates.  Below is a look at the changes in the percentage of taxes collected by different taxing groups from 2017 to 2020.

  1. St. Clair County percentage of the taxes collected has gone up 5%, from 12.8% to 13.5%. 
  2. The schools combined percentage that they collect has gone from 70.3% to 70.8 %.
  3. O’Fallon Township has maintained the same rate at about 4.4%.
  4. The City of O’Fallon has decreased its percentage of the tax bill from 12.4% to 11.3% or down by 9%.

Since each of the taxing bodies establishes their own tax rate, if you have any questions concerning these rates, I suggest you contact your County Board Representatives, School Board Members, Township Trustees or City Council Members.  You can also contact myself or the heads of each of these taxing bodies.

With many State taxes and others increasing , I want you to know that our Staff and the City Council have worked very hard to decrease the taxes you pay to the City and to be fiscally responsible with your tax dollars.

As residents of O’Fallon, you should always be able to reach out to your elected officials and ask questions about what is happening in O’Fallon. Having open communications is important to me and something I care very deeply about. Thank you for reading, and please remember, my door is always open (virtually, at least)!