My assessment is up 31% in Boise, but that’s not the problem. Property taxes are
Like many other Idahoans, I received my property assessment in the mail recently. Like many residents in the Treasure Valley, my assessment went up. Way up. Up 31% from last year.
Since we bought our house in Boise’s West End in 2013, our assessment has tripled.
But believe it or not, I don’t have a problem with my assessment. I think my assessment is pretty close to what the market is doing.
And that’s what the Ada County assessor’s office is supposed to do: get assessments within 10% of market value. In fact, the assessor’s office has to go through an audit each year to make sure those assessments come within 10% of sales prices. Year after year, Ada County comes in around 94%-97% of market values, according to Bob McQuade, Ada County assessor, who’s retiring this year after 28 years in the position.
Idaho’s property tax system is a good one, and folks who clamor for a California-type Prop 13 are misguided. Idaho’s property tax system is based on the market, and like properties are treated alike. In Idaho, we don’t have one house paying $2,000 in taxes based on a locked-in assessment from 20 years ago next door to another house assessed 10 times higher paying $20,000 in property taxes for the same services.
That’s not to say our system is perfect.
The property taxes on our house have nearly doubled, from $2,765 in 2014 to $5,179 last year.
I’m afraid of what they’ll be this year.
Part of the problem has to do with the shift in property tax burden from commercial to residential since Idaho Republican legislators capped the homeowners exemption in 2016. Couple that with dramatically rising home values — because of huge demand and limited supply — and residential properties make up a greater proportion of total taxable value.
In 2013, the property tax burden in Boise was about 55% residential and 45% commercial. By 2021, that gap grew to 71% residential and 29% commercial, according to numbers presented in March by Eric Bilimoria, city budget manager. Going back to 2001, it was a 50-50 split.
While my home’s value has tripled and taxes have nearly doubled, a commercial property that’s just two blocks from my house tells a different story.
Its assessed value increased 50%, from $833,000 to $1.24 million. Its taxes decreased 7%, from $14,309 to $13,338 last year.
Do I blame state legislators for not increasing and indexing the homeowners exemption? Most definitely.
State Rep. Mike Moyle, R-Star, would argue the city of Boise just needs to freeze its property tax budget if it wants to give residents property tax relief.
However, even if the city of Boise froze its property tax levy, the tax bill would still go up by $292.85 for a homeowner of an average home valued at $440,306, according to Bilimoria.
That’s because of the sharp increase in residential property values relative to commercial.
By capping the homeowners exemption, the Republican-dominated Legislature has painted the city of Boise into a corner, along with every other city, county, highway district and gopher district in Idaho.
It seems hard to justify budget cuts in one of the fastest-growing parts of the country. But if cities like Boise, Meridian and Nampa want to mitigate impact on homeowners, cutting the budget is their only option.
In Boise, I have to think there’s room to cut.
The city of Boise’s property tax budget has risen from $113.6 million in 2013 to $169 million in 2022. That’s an additional $56 million, or a 49% increase, in just nine years. Meanwhile, the city’s population rose 9%, from 209,726 in 2013 to 228,057 in 2020.
Unfortunately, we don’t have details yet for a proposed upcoming city budget, so we don’t know whether that property tax budget will go even higher.
Even though the Legislature painted city officials into a corner, lawmakers need to recognize that their residents are really the ones trapped in that corner.
