Jefferson County Treasurer, Assessor help public understand tax bill

FAIRFIELD – Jefferson County residents just received their property tax bills in the mail, and they’re noticing that the tax increases are higher than they’re used to.

A resident’s property tax depends on three variables – the value of their property, how much of that value is taxable (determined by “rollbacks” set at the state level), and the levies that the various taxing authorities impose such as the county, city and school district. Jefferson County Assessor Steve Wemmie and Jefferson County Treasurer Mark Myers said residents’ property tax bills are higher because both the assessed values and the tax levies have increased.

“It’s very noticeable,” Wemmer said about the assessed values rising in the last few years. “There were some areas of the county that rose 35-40 percent.”

Wemmie said an increase of that size is exceptionally rare.

“The only time it’s risen more was back in the 1970s when we had a similar situation with the market,” he said.

Myers added, “Property taxes have bumped up more than what we’re used to seeing. This year, the assessed values went up, and multiple taxing authorities needed more money.”

In a post shared on Aug. 15, Myers wrote on the Jefferson County Treasurer’s Facebook page that almost every levy increased this year, “with the biggest jumps coming from Jefferson County, Fairfield Community School District and the City of Fairfield.” The one exception to that which he noted was Jefferson County Health Center, which is dropping its levy because it will no longer siphon a portion of it toward the ambulance service (which was $0.27 per $1,000 in taxable values). Instead, the county is proposing that ambulance services be funded through a separate EMS levy of $0.75 per $1,000, instead of having funding for the ambulance come from the county, city and health center’s own funds.

The county supervisors have stated that county taxes will go down overall even if the EMS levy is approved in November, because the supervisors are cutting about $1 per $1,000 from other county levies.

Myers noted that the budgets for the three main taxing entities all increased, with the county’s rising $1.2 million (making it nearly 17 percent higher), the City of Fairfield’s rising $300,000 (just under 6 percent higher), and the school district’s rising $2 million (just under 22 percent higher).

This year, the county supervisors did not approve any raises for elected officials or county employees. Myers said such a freeze on salaries is rare but not unprecedented. The last time such a freeze was implemented was 15 years ago.

“My office is being asked to provide the same service for less money,” he said.

Wemmie said that residents who are wondering why their property values changed should know how assessments are calculated, which involves a formula that estimates a property’s value based on the sale price of nearby properties.

“We see what houses are being sold for. That’s what drives assessments,” Wemmie said. “It’s purely the market.”

Wemmie said that the formula that determines how much property values go up or down takes account of where the property is.

“We have map areas, so what is selling around the country club in Fairfield is a different market than Packwood or Batavia,” Wemmie said. “Not every neighborhood goes up by the same amount.”

Employees of the assessor’s office try to assess all individual parcels of land in the county every 10 years, so every year they assess about one-tenth of the roughly 19,000 parcels in Jefferson County. During these individual assessments, employees try to judge the value of a property by going inside, if the property owner allows it, and if not, by making judgments from the outside.

“We’re happy to go inside and look, which we prefer for accuracy,” Wemmie said. “We have people [from our office] on the ground every day.”

Wemmie said that, if the Iowa Department of Revenue does not believe a county assessor’s office is making appropriate adjustments to property values, it will issue an “equalization order” which forces the county to either increase or decrease all property values by a given percentage, without taking into account their individual characteristics. Wemmie has been the county’s assessor since 2016, and he said the state has issued equalization orders a couple of times during his tenure.

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com