Re: Taxes

["John Danahy" <JDANAHY@turbonet.com>]

Almost six years ago, being new to the school board, I had a talk with the
county assessor regarding how property taxes are levied.  I believe that
this state has two assessing entities, a county assessor which determines
the "market value" of individual properties, and a state assessor which
determines state wide property assessments.  These two entities do not often
agree, and it is my understanding that if they differ by too much the county
assessor is obligated to adjust local assessments to meet state levels.
This happened locally about ten years ago, if my poor memory serves me
right, and it happened again in the Boise/Meridian area about five years
ago.  That time there was a significant difference in assessments resulting
is some properties seeing the tax rate change upwards by very large amounts.
When you look at the state charging a "property tax" on local school
districts (equalization) and the districts passing that tax on to property
owners as a mil levy or M&O levy, then the state can simply raise local
property taxes without voter approval by legislating a change in the
equalization mil levy rate.  This was done in 1992 (I believe) with passage
of school funding bill 1560.  It was done again, in property owners favor,
with governor Batt's property tax relief bill.  The legislature, last year,
set the stage to change the levy rate again when it required the property
tax relief be appropriated each year instead of being paid out
automatically.

John

John and Laurie Danahy
jdanahy@turbonet.com
----- Original Message -----
From: Ken Medlin <dev-plan@moscow.com>
To: <WMSteed@aol.com>; Moscow Vision 2020 <vision2020@moscow.com>
Sent: Sunday, March 05, 2000 9:41 AM
Subject: Re: Taxes


> >property taxes
> Pardon my ignorance on this point, as I don't have the info. to hand, but
> it's my understanding that the state commission on property evaluation
> (or some similar entity) has the power, as in most other states, to
> regulate the property evaluation rates on which local millages depend for
> their total revenue. So these two controls are at work, one at state
> level pegged to evaluation, and a second at county level pegged to
> millage. The third part of the triangle of course is the county assessor
> who assigns your property's market value The tel. directories don't list
> any Idaho state commission on evaluation, so one has to call the County
> treasurer to clarify the matter -- which I shall do on Monday, this being
> Sunday. Does anybody out there have the cold facts on the matter? Ken M.
>
> ------------------------
> William K. Medlin
> Dev-plan associates
> 930 Kenneth Street
> Moscow ID 83843
> 208/892-0148
> dev-plan@moscow.com
>