Statement on the 2018 Taxes
Soon, the 2018 Property Tax Bills will be sent to residents of the City of Verona. The Property Tax rate will increase by 2.71% for the City’s portion of the bill (increase of $42 on a $272,000 assessed property). The total Tax Bill, including all taxing jurisdictions, will increase by 3.40% ($210 for a $272,000 property) over the 2017 tax rate. The total tax rate for 2018 is 23.5006 per $1,000 of assessed value.
A majority of the increase was due to an error that was identified in the assessed value of Tax Increment Districts (TID) reported to the State Department of Revenue earlier this year by the City Assessor. The error was found and the City worked to have the value corrected before the Tax Bills were sent. Due to State laws, the Department of Revenue could not allow us to make the correction because the error was found after the deadline of August 15, 2018 without reducing the City’s levy limit by over one million dollars for years to come. That would have required a million dollar reduction in operations and capital projects, possibly increasing the amount the City would need to borrow each year, creating even higher taxes in the future. The error over-estimated the value of Tax Increment Districts by approximately 56 million dollars which lowered the City’s tax base by the same amount causing an increase in the tax rate (levy to operate the City/assessed value).
The over-estimated TID amount will provide more dollars to be added to two TID District funds, not into the City’s general fund. Once dollars are in TID Districts, there are specific laws that require how these dollars can be spent for the district. The error has been corrected for the 2019 taxes and the City is working with financial advisers and the State Department of Revenue on legally available adjustments that can be made to next year’s tax rate to provide any possible relief to tax payers due to the 2018 increase.