The Cook County Board of Commissioners proposed a 2011 county levy of $6,174,951 at a December 14, 2010 truthin taxation meeting, an increase of $287,799, or 4.89 percent over last year’s levy. County Auditor-Treasurer Braidy Powers explained some of the complicated factors that are involved in setting the county levy and assessing individual property taxes.
Most of this year’s increase makes up for money the state had planned to give the county but didn’t, Powers said. Proposed expenditures are 6.6 percent lower than last year but 25.9 percent higher than expenditures in 2005. The amount levied, however, would be 42.12 percent higher than the amount levied in 2005.
The total of all proposed levies is $9,591,639, a 14.3 percent increase over last year. That money goes to many places other than the county, including the townships, the fire districts, the hospital, and the school district. Twenty-three percent of the total proposed levy would go to the State of Minnesota. The state is budgeting $269,197 for Cook County in 2011 but Powers does not expect to receive it. Since 1996, state aid has been as high as $1,088,742 (in 2002) and as low as $46,163 (in 2008).
Property owners who are comparing their tax increases with one another may wonder why the percentages of their increases are so different. Powers compared the tax bill of a home valued at $212,200 with that of a home valued at $765,100. The lower-valued home has an increase of 32.5 percent while the higher-valued home has an increase of 17 percent. Because the taconite credit, one of two types of homestead credits, didn’t get any bigger for either home, the tax increases end up magnifying the percentage increase on the lower-valued home. Properties classified as homestead bring in 18.1 percent of the county’s property tax income.
The overall valuation of Cook County land is expected to decrease 2.8 percent for 2011, but individual properties can vary greatly in regard to how much their property value will or will not change. Whether an individual property value goes up or down or stays the same affects the share of the county’s overall property tax that landowner must pay. The total taxable market value of Cook County property is expected to be $1,820,886,500 – over 97 times higher in 2011 than in 1992, when it was $18,644,354.
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