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PITTSBURG —
While July is in the throes of the summer, it’s also in the midst of budget season for elected city and county officials. And the driving factor in budgeting is assessed valuation.
Assessed valuation is the estimated taxable value of the property within the municipality. And for Crawford County, the numbers are slightly better this year than in recent years.
Overall, the assessed valuation for Crawford County rose by about 1.25 percent.
“A few places have gone down. The bigger gains have been made in the rural areas. Townships have gone up, not the cities,” said Crawford County Clerk Don Pyle.
County Appraiser Michael Montgomery confirmed that the biggest changes have been made in the more rural parts of the county. Montgomery does not personally keep records of individual cities, but rather tracks the type of property in the county.
His records show that most categories stayed flat in the last year, but the biggest increases have been in agricultural and farmstead property. The difference between the two is that farmstead property has a home on it, while agricultural property does not.
“We ahd an increase in the agriculture use values,” Montgomery said. “Those come from the state property valuation division. They’re up this year. Last year, they were pretty flat. Several years before, they were down quite a bit.”
Those values are based on an average value over an eight-year period. The most recent year in that process is 2010 because of a lag in reporting data.
That’s not to say there hasn’t been some construction. The farmstead values increased by more than $1 million from last year, which likely isn’t entirely agriculture values.
While the real property (all of the above values) are up a little bit, there are two more components, personal property and state-assessed utilities, which combine for about 13 percent of the county’s total value. Personal property may be down about $1.5 million this year, and the state-assessed utilities are not yet in. Montgomery said the county has been told to expect about a 4-5 percent increase there.
Pyle said that a 1 percent increase in assessed valuation means a difference of about $2,300 more generated per mill. Based on current county property taxes, that amounts to more than $100,000 in extra funds.
But county commissioner Bob Kmiec said not to get too excited about a slight increase. That’s because an increase of that amount is largely offset by increases in health insurance and other costs.
“To me, we’re flat, really,” Kmiec said. “What we’re looking at, from what I’ve seen, is pretty flat considering the cost of what’s going up with budgetary items. I think we could take last year’s budget and say, ‘Here it is.’ We’ve known that we’re going to have a little bit of work, though.”
Andrew Nash can be reached at andrew.nash@morningsun.net or by calling 231-2600 ext. 140.
While July is in the throes of the summer, it’s also in the midst of budget season for elected city and county officials. And the driving factor in budgeting is assessed valuation.
Assessed valuation is the estimated taxable value of the property within the municipality. And for Crawford County, the numbers are slightly better this year than in recent years.
Overall, the assessed valuation for Crawford County rose by about 1.25 percent.
“A few places have gone down. The bigger gains have been made in the rural areas. Townships have gone up, not the cities,” said Crawford County Clerk Don Pyle.
County Appraiser Michael Montgomery confirmed that the biggest changes have been made in the more rural parts of the county. Montgomery does not personally keep records of individual cities, but rather tracks the type of property in the county.
His records show that most categories stayed flat in the last year, but the biggest increases have been in agricultural and farmstead property. The difference between the two is that farmstead property has a home on it, while agricultural property does not.
“We ahd an increase in the agriculture use values,” Montgomery said. “Those come from the state property valuation division. They’re up this year. Last year, they were pretty flat. Several years before, they were down quite a bit.”
Those values are based on an average value over an eight-year period. The most recent year in that process is 2010 because of a lag in reporting data.
That’s not to say there hasn’t been some construction. The farmstead values increased by more than $1 million from last year, which likely isn’t entirely agriculture values.
While the real property (all of the above values) are up a little bit, there are two more components, personal property and state-assessed utilities, which combine for about 13 percent of the county’s total value. Personal property may be down about $1.5 million this year, and the state-assessed utilities are not yet in. Montgomery said the county has been told to expect about a 4-5 percent increase there.
Pyle said that a 1 percent increase in assessed valuation means a difference of about $2,300 more generated per mill. Based on current county property taxes, that amounts to more than $100,000 in extra funds.
But county commissioner Bob Kmiec said not to get too excited about a slight increase. That’s because an increase of that amount is largely offset by increases in health insurance and other costs.
“To me, we’re flat, really,” Kmiec said. “What we’re looking at, from what I’ve seen, is pretty flat considering the cost of what’s going up with budgetary items. I think we could take last year’s budget and say, ‘Here it is.’ We’ve known that we’re going to have a little bit of work, though.”
Andrew Nash can be reached at andrew.nash@morningsun.net or by calling 231-2600 ext. 140.
