cover
TO: Mayor John Laesch
FROM: Stacey L. Peterson, Chief Financial Officer/City Treasurer
DATE: October 27, 2025
SUBJECT:
An Ordinance Authorizing and Providing for the Abatement of General Obligation Bond Tax Levies, 2025 Tax Levy Extension.
PURPOSE:
To obtain the City Council's approval of a proposed ordinance that would serve to abate a portion of the city's 2025 property tax levies for general obligation (GO) bond debt service.
BACKGROUND:
The city currently has GO bonds outstanding from nine separate issues (not including library issues). The enabling ordinances related to these bonds provide for the automatic levy of property taxes to satisfy annual debt service requirements. These automatic tax levies are in place notwithstanding our regular annual city property tax levies.
For several years, the city has abated all or a portion of its property tax levies for GO debt service because we have had other revenue sources available to cover required debt service.
DISCUSSION:
For the 2025 tax levy year (taxes payable in 2026), we are again in a position to abate a large portion of the debt service associated with the city's GO bond issues. The total amount of this abatement would be $14,905,998.86. This amount is higher than in previous years due to the issuances of the 2025 GO Bonds.
Also attached is a copy of the Library Tax Levy for 2025. Each year the City will work with the Library to ensure that the Library adopts their tax levy to include the 2012A GO bond payments. This process was outlined in the Intergovernmental Agreement regarding the Library conversion to an independent district. Once receiving this levy, the City can then safely proceed with abating the "City" tax on these bonds, replacing that levy with the "Library" tax for those bonds. As long as the City and Library have Co-terminus boundaries, there is absolutely no impact to an Aurora taxpayer for this change.
The sources of funds that permit this abatement are attached to...
Click here for full text