You have to give it to the government…they get to remove all the low end sales from their valuations…sort of guarantees a nice tax from the folk with imaginary and made up values…

With EVERY tax increase, expenditures also increase by which any return of surpluses is almost never returned to the taxpayer in equal proportion. Also, margins needed for a sufficient bond rating between expenditures and revenue have increased, which also contribute to the demand of higher taxes.
A high reserve in capital is ALWAYS more costly than conservative operation ratios that meet actual cash outlays as opposed to ever growing debt projection “needs.”

EDITOR NOTE–Rates actually have gone down a few times in the recent past because the BUDGET is capped at 3% per year and there was so much growth and increased value, they literally couldn’t spend it all. Cities do indeed tend to “preserve their ability to tax” by increasing the budget each year. If they didn’t increase for a year or two, they would be hamstrung with a three year old budget amount that had a 3% cap on increases.

There is no downside. The county cannot raise your assessment at your appeal hearing, the most they can do is say no.

Use the assessor’s own figures to argue against them. Look at your neighbor’s or a neighboring sub land values. If they are similarly sized, but differently priced, then someone is getting screwed.

Just remember, your argument needs to be predicated on what happened to your property from Jan 2008 to Dec 2008 and not after.

Assessments don’t come out until after the May primary date. That’s a crime in my opinion, but it was ever thus and another topic.

The inhabitants of larger homes may only require the same amount of sewage plant as the people in smaller homes. However, the homes on bigger lots require longer street, sewer, and water lines per home than homes in denser areas. They also require more fire, EMS, and police investment in order to comply with minimum response times. Also, to the extent that many of the larger, upscale homes tend to be placed in the foothills, it is more expensive to place and maintain lift stations, steep roads, and other features associated with these areas. Thus, the cost to serve bigger homes is typically higher than it is for smaller, older, conventional homes.

I will yield the point that taxes on these larger homes may, or may not, have been enough to cover those costs. That can only be determined on a case by case basis.

However, the point of my original post remains intact: To the extent that the appraised values of the larger, often newer, homes is dropping by 30%, but the other, typically smaller and older, home values only drop by 10%, the shift in property taxes moves from the newer homes to the older homes.

And, again, the owners of the older, existing homes will be forced to pick up a greater share of the cost of recent growth.

The following numbers for assessment/acre:
Eagle Ranchettes- $474,369
Northend Boise- $2,242,184
Kuna- $950,730

Here is a copy of the spreadsheet I created. http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=rVssD0NAec32q6U5Ht9vWHw

EDITOR NOTE–We forgot to put that in! Assessment notices come out typically at the end of May, usually over the Memorial Day weekend.