Many factors affect your tax bill

Lewis Cousins, Special to The County
8 years ago

Many factors affect your tax bill

IN THE CITY

The 2016 assessments are currently being finalized and will be turned over to the tax collector by July 1st. Once all of the new municipal, school, and county budgets are finalized, the Presque Isle mil rate for 2016 will be calculated by dividing the total of the budget amounts by the total of our assessed values of real and personal property. The resulting mil rate is then applied to each property owner’s assessment to arrive at the tax amount for the year.

To clarify, budget increases lead to higher mil rates and valuation increases lead to lower mil rates.
For 2016, we in the assessing office have visited 56 real estate properties where new construction has occurred in the last tax year and discovered $1,760,000 in new real estate value. We also have discovered and listed 23 new personal property accounts. In addition, we have made market changes to the lot improvement assessment on each developed parcel and to the value we assess to tillable land.
In final form, the 2016 City assessment will be approximately $22 million higher than the 2015 City assessment. The increases are tied directly to land value and distributed evenly among all developed parcels. In addition to helping to keep the mil rate from increasing, these changes will also improve our certified ratio to ensure the City receives full reimbursement from the State on tree growth, homestead, BETE, and revenue sharing disbursements. Every qualified homestead and veteran property owner will also continue to receive the full benefit for 2016 and beyond.
Currently we know that the approved 2016 municipal budget increased from 2015 by 7.5 percent and the county assessment to Presque Isle increased by 4.2 percent. The school budget has not been finalized as of this writing.
In addition the homestead benefit to qualifying residents has been increased to $15,000 from $10,000. This increase means a reduction in the City assessment of over $10 million. We do however get reimbursed from the state for 50 percent of this extra reduction of value. Each of these items work to increase the mil rate.
When the commitment is final, we expect the assessment increases presented above to offset the budget increases and value losses from the homestead. As a result we expect the mil rate to remain relatively flat, or possibly decrease slightly for 2016.
As always we encourage each and every taxpayer to come in and review their assessment. We are here to answer your questions and explain our valuations and look forward to discussing how and why we do our work.
Lewis Cousins is Presque Isle’s assessor. He can be reached at 760-2714 or via email at lcousins@presqueisleme.us.