Joliet is planning a $54.5 million property tax levy for next year, an increase from the 2025 levy, but one that will not raise the tax rate, the city finance director said.

Finance Director Kevin Sing led a brief discussion on the levy at the City Council meeting Tuesday.

The council will vote on the levy Dec. 2.

“The goal of this levy was that the tax rate would be the same as what people paid last year,” Sing said.

“However, if we kept the levy the same, as others have done, it would lower the tax rate,” council member Larry Hug said during the council’s discussion on the levy.

“That’s possible,” Sing said.

The city, like other taxing bodies, each year sets a levy that determines how much it collects in property taxes. The tax rate is a reflection of what individual property owners will need to pay to generate city property tax revenue.

City officials said they can get $2.6 million in new property tax revenue from newly built homes and businesses added to the tax rolls over the past year, even with the same tax rate.

The property tax levy for this year was $51.9 million.

Keeping the tax rate steady does not necessarily mean that individual homeowners’ property taxes will stay the same.

The tax rate is a number applied to the assessed value of a property to determine the amount of taxes paid. If the assessed value of a house goes up, taxes go up, even if the tax rate stays the same.

Sing noted that the tax rate actually went down slightly last year. Still, the Joliet levy went up $2.6 million.

“This would be another year without a tax rate increase,” Sing said.

City taxes are just one portion of a tax bill, most of which goes to public schools.

Sing said that city of Joliet taxes amount to 12% of a tax bill.