Wilmette tax levy gets 3% bump — or about $65 per taxpayer

A late adjustment from Wilmette officials softened the future blow to residents’ pockets — but locals can still expect to see an uptick in the village’s portion of their property tax bill. 

Wilmette trustees during their Tuesday, Nov. 25 meeting held a public hearing on the village’s fiscal year 2026 budget, which includes the town’s property tax levy.

This year’s levy, slated to be formally adopted at the board’s next meeting on Tuesday, Dec. 9, is proposed to come in with a 2.98% increase. But that number is down from the 3.84% that officials first proposed earlier this fall.

Wilmette’s proposed 2026 levy totals $22.46 million. The 2.98% uptick will translate to an approximate increase for residents of $65 in the village’s share of property taxes based on the median home value.

Erik Hallgren, Wilmette’s assistant village manager, said during the Nov. 25 session that a majority of the Village Board urged staff during a budget workshop to further reduce the property tax levy.

The nearly one percentage point reduction, according to Hallgren, is addressed in the final budget through a series of late adjustments. The first, he said, was the addition of $100,000 in nonrecurring building permit revenues.

During the board’s Nov. 12 meeting, trustees directed staff to review and update the budgeted amounts for nonrecurring building permit revenues, according to a village memo. That update was based upon “historical activity as an opportunity to offset the revenue reduction resulting from the lower tax levy increase,” the memo reads.

Additionally, there was an allocation of $137,000 from general fund reserves to offset the remaining costs related to the lowered tax levy, Hallgren said. Positive performance in real estate transfer tax receipts and building permits revenues allowed for the additional allocation of reserves, the memo says.

Roughly 11-12% of a Wilmette resident’s property taxes goes toward the village, Hallgren said. According to village data, the average property tax payment in Wilmette is $16,253.

The 2.98% mark is the highest levy Wilmette has had since 2021, when it came in at 3.97%. Last year’s levy increase was 2.3%.

Just over $12 million from the levy will go toward village operations, while $6.22 million will fund public safety pensions. Just over $2 million will go to Wilmette’s road program and just under $2 million will fund debt service.

Property taxes are the largest source of revenue in Wilmette’s general fund. The next largest sources are sales tax and home-rule sales tax, income tax and service charges, per village documents.

Residents will see a small monthly increase of 65 cents in their residential solid waste collection fee. The 2026 budget also proposed a $50 increase in average annual stormwater fees, which Hallgren said is “consistent with the long-term funding plan for debt obligations associated with Wilmette’s neighborhood Storage Project.”

Wilmette’s overall expense budget for 2026 is $124.59 million. That number represents a 23% increase over last year’s budget. Per Hallgren, the majority of the increase is related to the town’s new police station project, which is expected to break ground in 2026.

The largest portion of the budget, $50.42 million is slated for the village’s general fund while the second highest amount, $25.44 million, is attributed to the village’s capital projects fund.

The budget also, according to a village memo, earmarks $7.29 million in reserve drawdowns to fund capital investment projects including roadways, building repairs, software upgrades, vehicles, lead service replacements and water transmission mains.

Trustees voted to adopt the 2026 budget but the measure did not pass with the full blessing from the board. Trustee Gina Kennedy, one of the longest-serving members on the board, was the lone dissenter.

Kennedy took particular issue with a slide that was presented during the meeting that depicted taxpayer impact. She stated that she believed it was deceptive to not include the village’s recently approved grocery tax as part of that slide.

“I’m surprised that (the grocery tax) is not listed as a tax-payer impact,” Kennedy said. “… I don’t like this lack of transparency and think we should be up front … when we talk about what we’re doing, we should include everything that we do which has an impact on (residents).”

She later added that she was “disappointed that we chose not to even give it a footnote.”

Kennedy, along with trustee Mark Steen, opposed the 1% percent grocery tax that the board approved via a 4-2 vote in late September.

Wilmette was one of many Chicagoland municipalities to adopt a grocery tax in replacement of the state’s canceled 1% grocery tax, which has existed since 1990 and will expire at year’s end. Without the state’s tax, Wilmette officials project the village will lose $600,000 in annual revenue.

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