PORT TOWNSEND — Jefferson County will bill property owners $45.13 million in taxes this year, more than $1 million less than last year, county Treasurer Judi Morris said.
The Jefferson County Treasurer’s Office billed $42.61 million in 2010 property taxes and $46.24 million last year.
Property tax bills will be mailed to property owners by the end of this month. The first half-payment is due April 30.
Jefferson County conducts property assessments for one-fourth of the county every year.
This year, the Assessor’s Office reset the values for the Chimacum School District, where property values fell by an average of 25 percent in the past four years.
While Marrowstone Island stayed relatively flat, single-family homes in the Port Ludlow area dropped about 35 percent, with some condominiums falling by as much as 45 percent, county Assessor Jack Westerman III said.
North Olympic Peninsula property values have been trending down with the bad economy in recent years.
Countywide, assessed property values have fallen dramatically — from about $240,000 at the height of the housing boom in 2005 to about $167,000 last year.
Westerman said the drop corresponds with the crash in the housing market.
Westerman provided the total assessed value of all Jefferson County property in each of the past three years.
It was:
■ $5.40 million in 2009.
■ $5.42 billion in 2010.
■ $4.92 billion in 2011.
“[2011] was the first time we’ve ever dropped the assessed values,” said Westerman, whose career in Jefferson County spans 31/2 decades.
Westerman described the $500,000 drop in property values last year as “very significant.”
“We’ll be dropping the assessed values next year, too,” he said in a series of interviews last month.
County officials are often asked by their constituents how property tax can rise when property values go down.
The answer is that property tax is a combination of your assessed property value and the levies that exist where the property is located. Voters in the various taxing districts help determine the property tax.
“It is very possible for the assessed value to go down and the tax bill up,” said Morris, whose personal property value went down $35,000 while her tax bill went up by $500.
“It is important to remember that the assessed value is just one of the two components of the tax bill.”
“Each of the entities [city, county, fire, port, utility district, library and others] submits a budget to the assessor,” Morris explained.
“The assessor develops levy rates for each area to assure those budgets will be satisfied. The levy rate is factored against the assessed value and the tax amount determined.”
For a $160,000 piece of property in Port Townsend, for example, property tax bills have risen from $1,245 in 2010 to $1,351 last year to $1,402 this year.
The $160,000 value is about average for the entire North Olympic Peninsula.
The owner of a $160,000 piece of property in Port Ludlow paid $1,445 in 2010, $1,505 in 2011 and was billed $1,123 this month.
Both in Chimacum and on Marrowstone Island, the owner of a $160,000 home paid $1,217 in 2010, $1,366 last year and was billed $1,564 for this year.
The reason Port Ludlow taxes went down this year while the others went up is because property values in Port Ludlow fell at a disproportionately higher rate.
“Then, the rest of the areas are going to go up to balance it out,” Morris said.
Morris said there was a ripple effect from Port Ludlow that raised property taxes slightly in the rest of the county to “float the boat.”
This year, the Jefferson County Assessor’s Office will reset property values for portions of the Port Townsend School District that are outside the city limit.
Next year, Westerman and his staff will reset property values within the city of Port Townsend.
In 2014, Jefferson County will switch to an annual assessment schedule for the entire county to comply with a new state law.
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Reporter Rob Ollikainen can be reached at 360-417-3537 or at rob.ollikainen@peninsuladailynews.com.
