ROCKFORD, Ill. (WTVO) — The largest public school district in the Rockford area discussed how much money it will need from taxpayers on Tuesday night.

The decision was to keep a flat tax levy, something all board members were in favor of.

“This is the final approval of the tax levy, and so this will be what we actually turn into the county clerks,” said Chief Financial Officer Greg Brown.

The RPS 205 board unanimously agreed to keep a flat tax levy for the upcoming year.

“The school board decided to hold the tax levy flat, which means they didn’t take any CPI increase and they also did not capture any of the taxes on any of the new properties,” Brown said. “So, taxes will remain flat as they’ve had for the last 10 years.”

The board was presented with three different options for the tax levy in order to come to this solution of staying flat.

“We gave the board three different option to look at,” Brown said. “One was to keep the levy flat, one was to take new property and one was to capture new property and the CPI. And, so, the board had a couple of months to look over what they wanted to move forward with.”

This tax levy announcement came a week after the City of Rockford also announced a flat tax levy for the year. The park district will make their decision in December. They currently have a budget deficit of over $1 million. They said that they are hoping to have a flat tax levy as well, however.

Many of the reasons that RPS 205 kept it flat was based on the current rate of around 6%. That number in the previous year put RPS at the 6th lowest out of the 12 districts in Winnebago and Boone County.

“The board has been trying to manage the tax rate, and so we actually think the tax rate is going to be below 6. So that’s good, and that was one of their goals to try and get it under that level,” Brown said. “They were really trying to get back to where the tax rate was several years ago, and they’ve done that at this point.”

This does not mean that residents’ taxes will stay the same, as the price of a person’s house can go up. That same rate would have them paying more in that case.