By PETER HUSSMANN
The Newton City Council will meet at 5:30 p.m. tonight to get a budget status update from city administration officials as initial fiscal year 2010-2011 budget work continues.
City officials are expected to paint a somewhat brighter picture of the city's financial condition than in years past due to two factors working in the city's budget favor.
First, the state equalization order that put a 6 percent valuation increase on all residential properties in the Jasper County and a 5 percent valuation increase on all commercial properties generates millions more in valuation totals local governments use in crafting their fiscal year budgets.
Second, the state hiked the "rollback" figure which provides higher taxable valuations on residential properties. In the current fiscal year, the residential "rollback" stands at 45.5893 percent while it moves to 46.9094 for the upcoming fiscal year.
Couple that with the 6 percent valuation increase the state ordered on residential properties in the county and taxable values will be up. Here's how it works:
Current fiscal year: $100,000 value home X 45.5893 rollback = taxable value of $45,589.30
Coming fiscal year: Same $100,000 value home X 6 percent state equalization order = $106,000 X 46.9094 rollback = taxable value of $49,723.90.
So, if all the taxing bodies that a Newton residential property owner pays to (school, county, city, etc.) left their levy rates the same and it again totaled $42.36, the same property owner would pay an additional $175 in property taxes. Tax payments to the City of Newton account for about a third of the total bill. (Homestead etc. tax credits were not included in the calculations.)
Not all residential and commercial properties in the county will be impacted by the state equalization order. About 1,000 property owners across the county appealed the state order to the Jasper County Board of Review and late last month it concluded its review of the appeals and approved about 80 percent of them. The appeals approved resulted in a $7.8 million reduction in the county's overall valuation.
However, the number of appeals filed amounted to only about 4 percent of the 28,000 total properties in the county.
Local government bodies are expected to receive their total valuation figures early next month.
