Notices detail likely property tax impact
Staff writer
Marion County taxpayers have begun receiving so-called “revenue neutral” notices about real estate taxes to be imposed later this year.
The notices are required by state law. What they show is not only how much governments plan to charge taxpayers but also how changes in appraised property values will impact individual taxpayers’ bills.
Marion County, for example, chose to adopt a so-called revenue-neutral tax rate.
That means, in the aggregate, the county will receive for this coming year the same total amount of real estate property tax revenue as it did this year.
That doesn’t mean, however, that taxes on any individual property will remain the same.
Many properties, especially in the Marion area, were reappraised at the height of a boom in real estate values. Because of that, individual tax bills will increase even with revenue neutrality.
On a typical Marion home, valued at around $150,000 on Zillow and originally appraised at $100,000 by the county, that increase could be substantial.
Now valued by county assessors at nearly 15% more than it was a year ago, the home will be billed almost 10% more for county taxes even though the county adopted revenue neutrality.
That translates into a tax increase of around $90 despite the county’s stated claim of holding the line on taxes.
The increase also would be just one of several affecting the property.
Governmental units like the cities of Marion and Hillsboro voted earlier this year to say they planned to ignore revenue neutrality in their budgeting.
Hillsboro’s city council has discussed its budget in detail and agreed on a proposed budget to be presented at a public hearing.
Marion’s city council has not yet met to discuss specific budget amounts and has not produced a proposed budget.
Without asking the council, Marion’s city clerk merely submitted a proposed tax rate equivalent to last year’s rate. That rate exceeds revenue neutrality by 7.6%.
Combined with reassessment, taxing at that rate would result in an additional $122.95, or 14.18%, in city taxes for the owner of a typical Marion home formerly assessed at around $100,000.
Marion still could retreat from that rate before proposing a final budget, and taxes could — but almost never are — be reduced after public hearings that the revenue-neutral notice advertises.
However, the final impact of abandoning revenue neutrality by multiple taxing units, including the Marion-Florence school district, recreation district, hospital district, and extension district is likely to be sizeable.
The notices being sent to taxpayers do not add up all the increases, but for the typical house described in this article they would amount to a total tax increase of nearly $300 or 12.24%.
Inflation, by comparison, has been only 3% over the past year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
At the bottom of the notice being sent to taxpayers are the dates, times, and locations of hearings local governments are required to convene on whether to exceed revenue neutrality.
Typically, these meetings occur immediately before the units present their proposed budgets for questioning by taxpayers.
Rarely do taxpayers actually appear at these meetings. Proposed budgets, which under law must be published in the public notices section of this newspaper at least 10 days before budget hearings, typically are adopted without change.
Final tax rates will not be set until shortly before tax bills are sent out in the fall.
Typically, rates are slightly above those approved after budget hearings because valuation appeals reduce the overall assessed value to which levies approved after those hearings are applied.