Will Chemtool Tempt Garden Prairie Residents to Form a Village?

When I was writing the story about Boone County’s snatching Chemtool from Crystal Lake for Garden Prairie, I noticed that there would be $400,000 worth of sales tax leaving McHenry County and going to Boone County.

Of that local share, county government gets an automatic one-fifth. That’s $80,000.

And in unincorporated areas, county government gets the entire amount raised by the 1.25% local sales tax. In Chemtool’s case, that’s estimated to be $400,000, a figure which I found in a Kevin Haas’ article in the Rockford Register-Srar.

With that kind of revenue at stake, I would note that folks in Garden Prairie might decide to incorporate in order to utilize the money locally.

$320,000 in sales tax would go to any new village.

To put it in perspective, I called Capron to find out its budget.

It’s $1.2 million.

It gets about $30,000 a year in sales tax.

In 2,000, Capron had almost 1,000 people and 354 housing units.

Garden Prairie, on the other hand, has 112 residential parcels. (Not quite the same definition, but close.)

That’s about one-third the number in Capron.

(Bonus Township, which contains Garden Prairie, had 2,662 in the 2000 census.)

In addition to sales taxes, however, there are property taxes to consider.

Chemtool’s assessed valuation in McHenry County is $1.9 million.

Assessments are generally about 30% of market value, so one might assume that the current building and grounds are worth about $6 million.

Testimony in Boone County indicated Chemtool’s investment in Garden Prairie would be about $40 million.

Chrysler, by comparison, has a fair market value of about $60 million, with an assessed value of almost $21 million.

One cannot take Chemtool’s $40 million investment figure and multiply 30% times it to determine a future real estate assessment.

Northern Illinois University’s Regional Development Institute Director Dr. John Lewis told me that about 80% of $40 million or $32 million could be used as the value.

30% of that would yield an assessment of $9.6 million.

Not an insignificant amount.

Almost half of Chrysler’s assessment.

Add that to the current assessed valuation–$4.1 million–of something called the Garden Prairie Light District and you have a total of $13-14 million.

Capron, by comparison, has an assessed valuation of $15.9 million.

So Capron has an assessed valuation of about $45,000 per household, while Garden Prairie’s would probably be at least $116,000.

My conclusion:

It seems to me that Garden Prairie could be at least as viable village as Capron.

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The sign says, “NO Chemtool.” Might attitudes change once local residents figure out that Chemtool might produce enough revenue to finance a village government?


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