These charts offer a comparison ….

These charts offer a comparison of aggregate local tax rates for Taylor County’s municipalities as broken out by school and special taxing districts.

On average the tax rate in Taylor County communities dropped by nearly 9% this year compared to last year.

This was driven, in part by increasing property values as the price of homes and land soar. In some communities such as the city of Medford and the town of Browning revaluation to bring the assessed values in line with equalized values were a major factor in the rate drop with Browning’s rate dropping a whopping 32.21%. In doing the revaluation in Browning the assessors discovered property improvements that had never been included in the past and the recent reassessment corrects those past errors.

Another contributing factor in the reduction of local property tax rates in the Medford Area Public School District was the significant drop in the levy due to the district paying off a large portion of previous debt and being able to lower the levy amount.

The Medford School District tax rate dropped from $8.32 per $1,000 of equalized value to $6.07 per $1,000 in equalized value this year. By comparison the state average for school districts is $8.67 per $1,000 of equalized value.

Equalized value figures are used by school districts, county governments and other multi-jurisdictional taxing entities to project rates. These are based on the fair market value of properties as estimated by the state based on market trends. Taxes paid by individuals and businesses are based on assessed value. State law limits how far out of alignment the assessed value can be from the equalized value. It is this disparity that routinely triggers revaluation.

In rural communities that have not seen a large amount of new growth, it is typically more valuable from a taxpayer standpoint to look at changes in the overall levy amounts to determine tax impact rather than looking at the tax rate.

The town of Maplehurst tax rates demonstrate the impact school district levies have on the final aggregate rate.

The town is split between Gilman, Medford and Owen-Withee districts. With the Gilman portion having a rate of $23.83 while the Medford portion has a rate of $19.03 and Owen-Withee portion has a rate of $20.80.

In addition to Maplehurst, Taylor County has five towns that are split between two or more school districts. Goodrich contains both the Athens and Medford school districts. Grover is split between Medford and Gilman school districts. McKinley has both Gilman and Flambeau school districts. Roosevelt contains Owen-Withee, Thorp, and Gilman school districts. Taft contains Gilman, Thorp and Stanley-Boyd school districts.

As a whole the county is divided between Northcentral Technical College and Chippewa Valley Technical College districts. With much larger taxing districts, tax rate impact of the technical colleges is comparatively far smaller than other parts of the property tax.

The average tax rate in Taylor County is $18.43 per $1,000 of assessed value. The median tax rate, which means that half are above and half below, is $18.91 per $1,000 of value. The aggregate tax rate combines the county, school, technical college, and local municipal levies divided by the assessed value of that municipality.

—Brian Wilson, News Editor