Story County Tax Rates

If you are like me, and got your property tax sheet from the county, you will notice that your property tax bill took a jump, namely on a percentage basis for the City of Roland. I was kinda surprised to see that as well, so I did some digging. The reason for my surprise, was that I know the city council has pretty much held the line on general city expenditures. The past two years, the budget has not changed much for the operations of Roland.

However, after the digging, the jump is due to payments for the bond the city got for the installation of the new streets/extension of Bryan and Arthur. The city chose to add those for a couple of reasons. That would be for help in development of Britson Park, having more development land in the industrial park, and to provide an alternative outlet for Logan Street, which was previously a dead end, but had about 1/9 of the city's population.

Anyway, I didn't think that payment would hit in this year's taxes but it did. And with that, we still have one more year of payment for our well project of 10 years ago, so next year, we will have a reduction in taxes for not having to make that payment (probably around $40k, but I don't guarantee that number)

Property taxes in Iowa are kinda squirly, as they have a rollback and all that, so you currently pay taxes on only about 1/2 the value of your property. Currently state law limits city councils to charging only $8.10 per thousand of assessed valuation. But you can also charge extra levies for insurance, orchestras (not us!), emergency services, and debt service. We charge the $8.10, plus .86 for insurances, and now $1.42 for debt service. Last year our debt service was 33 cents--which was for the wells, which should go away next year.

So with that, this year, the City of Roland will take 31% of your total property taxes. The school takes 48%, plus adds a 10% income tax surcharge to you as well. The rest goes to the county, and DMACC, and some other agencies.

Back to cities themselves, here is how Roland stacks up with other towns in the county. Roland takes $10.38 for every thousand of assessed valuation after the rollback which is 48%. So if you have a house assessed at $100,000, it is taxed on $48,000, which means you pay $10.38 for 48 thousand=tax to the city only, is $498.

Now remember, each city has money borrowed for different things, and has different levels of services provided--for example, we have a pool, and Gilbert doesn't. That is an expenditure we have that Gilbert doesn't. Some towns have police forces that cost more than contracting with county sheriff, like we do. Businesses pay higher taxes than an equal valued house, so more businesses mean more incoming tax revenue, and so on. So this isn't totally apples to apples, but it shows what all the towns have chosen to do.

And not to pick on Zearing, but somebody with a $100,000 house in Zearing would pay $21 a year less in city only property taxes than someone in Roland. Does a Roland homeowner get $21 a year more value from their city government than someone from Zearing? I guess that is for them to decide.

Roland $10.38
Ames $10.84
Cambridge $8.10
Collins $10.97
Colo $12.92
Gilbert $10.90
Huxley $10.51
Maxwell $8.97
Kelley $8.10
Nevada $15.00
Slater $14.35
Story City $8.50
Zearing $9.95