Kane County’s Budget Situation
Kane County tax revenues provide services like public safety, capital improvements, transportation, health services, voter registration and elections, Veterans Assistance, farmland protection and economic development.
The costs, or expenses to provide these services are mainly funded property tax revenue, sales tax revenue, state and federal grants, revenue sharing from other government entities, and the fees and fines collected by the county for certain county services. The majority of property tax receipts are not allocated to Kane County operations but instead to fund local school districts.
Chart 1: How Property Taxes are Used in Kane County (FY 2024)
Property Taxes and Historical Tax Rates in Kane County
Although school districts, park districts, municipalities and other local taxing bodies may have increased their tax levies over time, the property tax levy rate for Kane County has been falling since 2015. The tax rate is assessed against $100 of equalized property value.
The table below shows that while the property tax levy rate has dropped each year for the last decade, Kane County Government’s property tax revenue has increased slightly, due to rising property values and an expanding economy. However, inflation, which is a key driver of County expenses, jumped to historically high levels in the post-COVID era leaving the tax increases inadequate to cover rising expenses.
As the economy and property values grow more slowly, a growing gap has developed between revenue and expenses (CPI-U).
This gap has to some extent been masked by the availability of federal COVID related funding between 2020 and 2024. As was permitted by the CARES Act and the American Rescue Plan, Kane County allocated some of these funds to County government departments to cover revenue replacement, payroll expenses and other projects, in addition to allocations for things like immunizations, COVID-19 contact tracing and testing.
In total, Kane County deposited $38.5 million in COVID related ARPA and CARES Act grants to its General Account. These funds are now fully spent, so are no longer available to cover property tax and other revenue shortfalls.
SOURCE: Historical annual Tax Levy Rates and Tax Extension taken from annual District Extension Listing Reports.
Read the Full 2025 Taxation Series
- 2025 Budget Situation Part 1
- 2025 Budget Situation Part 2
- 2025 Budget Situation Part 3
- 2025 Budget Situation Part 4
- 2025 Budget Situation Part 5
