Supervisor explains property tax notice

As required by recent law, many of you have seen an Explanation of Example in Proposed Property Tax Levy Notice being posted to all social media accounts within the county.

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This will also be mailed out soon in your Truth in Taxation Documents. This is part of HF718, which was the property tax relief bill passed last year, requiring this post.

This notice was prepared in accordance with the new law, alongside the Department of Management’s calculations. However, this notice is somewhat confusing.

The Requested Tax Dollars Countywide and Additional Rural Levies Rates line items show an increase in property tax dollars from fiscal year 2023-2024.

The potentially misleading portion is the Tax Rate Comparison-Current vs. Proposed portion of this Notice. The notice shows a 13.76% and 12.30% decrease in tax rate from the current fiscal year.

This does not mean property taxes are going down next fiscal year. The calculation prescribed by the state is misleading for two reasons: It does not include an increase in valuation and accentuates the increased FY 24-25 rollback.

The valuation for the example property in this notice is $100,000 for both years. However, most property increased in valuation from the current fiscal year.

The residential rollback increased by roughly 8% from FY23/24 to FY24/25, which decreased the taxable value on your home. Therefore, unless the county’s levy rates exceeded the rollback increase, coupled with the absence of an increased valuation on the example FY24/25 property, it will show a negative percent change.

Calculating the percentage change, based on the upper portion of property tax requested, is the most accurate way to depict the increase in property taxes for FY24/25.

The county-wide levies will increase by approximately 1.3%. The rural services levy will increase by approximately 5.3%. Total property tax revenue is set to increase by $216,888.792 (2.3% of FY 23/24 total property tax ask).

I hope this clarifies this notice for our constituents. Please feel free to reach out with any further questions.