FARGO -- Additional property-tax relief that North Dakota lawmakers approved this session is worth at least 4 mills to Cass County property owners.
For most homeowners, this could mean additional savings in the $20 to $40 range, which comes on top of property-tax relief packages of previous sessions that were recently renewed.
The county now spends $2.4 million a year on several foster care programs that the state Department of Health will pay for starting next year, according to County Auditor Mike Montplaisir and Social Services Director Chip Ammerman.
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The county has been paying more into those programs over the years even though the number of foster children has fallen, Ammerman said. He blamed the rising cost of health care.
The other units of local government that may be affected by property-tax relief are the school districts, which will get more dollars per student than last biennium, from $9,092 to $9,365 and then to $9,646 the year after, a 3 percent and 6 percent increase respectively. But it's a little harder to figure out how that will affect homeowners' property tax bills, at least until the school budgets are closer to completion.
Broc Lietz, the Fargo School District's business manager, said he's still working through the budget assumptions now and won't have an estimated mill levy for a week.
The other unknown is the assessed value of properties, which have not been finalized for next year. If property values rise faster than cuts to the property tax rate, the savings for taxpayers may not materialize.
Between 2008, the year before lawmakers approved the first of the recent tax relief packages, and 2014, the property tax rate in Cass County cities dropped anywhere from 20 percent to 61 percent, according to county records.
Fargo residents who live in the Fargo School District, for example, saw their mill levies go from 455.43 to 286.37, a 37 percent decrease. Each mill is equivalent to $4.50 for the owner of a $100,000 home and $5 for the owner of any other property worth $100,000.
West Fargo residents saw their mill levies go from 441.38 to 292.66, a 34 percent decrease.
In 2009, lawmakers increased K-12 funding in hopes that school districts would cut their property-tax rates by as many as 75 mills. That's exactly how much the Fargo and West Fargo school districts cut their tax rate.
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In 2013, lawmakers increased K-12 funding with the aim of cutting another 50 mills from school-district property taxes. Fargo School District cut 53.93 mills and West Fargo cut 50.
Lawmakers also added a 12 percent property-tax credit for all local governments. The local governments would collect 12 percent less and be reimbursed by the state.
In this most recent session, which ended last month, lawmakers kept the property-tax relief packages of the past and added a little bit more.
