Property Tax Levies

The Assessor does not raise property values in order to increase taxes. The cost of providing public services determines your property tax. Local government consists of various taxing districts including fire districts, regional library, cities, county government, roads, ports, etc. A portion of the tax is distributed to the state for local school support.

In addition, taxes are collected to pay for special voter-approved levies, such as school Enrichment Levies formerly called maintenance and operation levies and bonds and emergency medical levies. The Assessor sets the levy rates based on each taxing districts budget requests, statutory limits and property values. Levy rates are expressed in dollars per thousand dollars of assessed value.

The amount of money needed by the taxing district budget is divided by the value of all the taxpayers' parcels in the district. This equals the tax rate for the district. Each taxpayer then pays taxes on: The value of the parcels belonging to the taxpayer times The tax rate for the district / districts the parcels are located in.