Property tax rolls may have thinned out in Blaine County this year due to new statewide legislation, but that doesn't necessarily mean taxpayers will be less burdened.
The $25,000 increase in the Idaho homeowners exemption to $75,000 and the removal of the public school maintenance and operation budgets from the property tax roll contributed to decreases of between 15 percent and 18 percent in Blaine County.
For example, the owner of a property in Hailey valued at $275,000 will have to pay taxes of $981.14 in 2006, down from $1,147.68 in 2005, which is a 15 percent reduction.
Carey taxpayers are also seeing 15 percent reductions. Bellevue dropped 16 percent, and Ketchum and Sun Valley both fell 18 percent.
But the continued escalation of Blaine County property values—18 percent (from $9.8 billion to $11.9 billion) in 2006 and 21 percent (from $8 billion to $9.8 billion) in 2005—means those decreases won't be felt in the pocketbook.
"We're definitely not seeing the 20 percent (decrease) the governor supposedly said we would," Blaine County Treasurer Vicki Dick said. "Three counties will not benefit completely from the change in law—Blaine, Teton and McCall—all because of property values."
Dick explained that Blaine County's property values have been so high compared to the rest of the state that it provides its own funding for schools. Most other school districts are almost entirely funded by the state via the school maintenance and operation tax. Since that tax was dropped this year, it provided a significant relief for most of Idaho's counties, except Blaine, McCall and Teton.
Dick said the only way a taxpayer would actually see meaningful relief in Blaine County this year is if their property values remained stagnant.
Hundreds of Blaine County property owners, including Sun Valley Co., which was assessed at $222 million, appealed their assessments last summer.
Most assessments, however, were upheld.
What many protesting taxpayers may be overlooking is the fact that Idaho cities can't increase revenues from property taxes by more than 3 percent a year.
Additionally, as property values rise, the levy typically goes down, keeping taxes in check.
"And that is typically what has been happening because values have been going up steadily," explained Blaine County Assessor Valdi Pace. "If values remained the same and budgeting entities needed more money, taxes may go up. If the values go down it doesn't necessarily mean taxes will go down because services wont go away."
Pace is currently in the process of valuing properties for 2007.
"We've obviously heard about the market going down, but we haven't had evidence of that," she said. "We're still getting minimal returns on sales verification letters. There's no indication of a major downward trend in those letters at this point. The true analysis won't start until the end of the year ... and we'll have a pretty good feel for it by end of April."
Pace said it was very difficult to accurately value property in the county in 2006 because Idaho is a non-disclosure state, meaning sales data for real estate transactions don't have to be reported to county assessors.
Pace issued assessments based on data from just 13.6 percent of all real estate transactions that occurred in the county in 2005.
"If we don't have the information, how can we do a better job?" Pace asked.
