Morgan County residents got some good news over the weekend when the county received their equalized assessed value figure from the state.
This year’s equalized assessed value, or EAS, came in at 1.0, which is a major positive for local tax payers.
Morgan County’s Chief Assessment Officer Allen Vogt explains exactly what that figure means for county residents.
“It just means that the assessor’s office and the county are doing their job, according to state statutes, of assessing property based on the median level of assessments at 33.3 percent. That means when each property owner sees their assessment, they know that’s what their tax bill is going to be based on, and not some added percentage to it based on the state multiplier,” says Vogt.
Vogt provides an example of how an EAS of 1.0 saves tax dollars for local property owners.
“Based on, let’s say a $150,000 home, technically the assessment should be one-third of that which is $50,000. Now take that times the most recent tax rate for the City of Jacksonville, which was approximately nine percent, that would equate to a $4,500 tax bill. Now, if we take that same $50,000 assessment and say we had a two percent, a 1.02 state multiplier applied, you would take that $50,000 times 1.02 to increase the assessment to $51,000. Then using that same nine percent tax rate, that tax bill would $4,590. So we’re saving property owners’ tax dollars money by doing our job correctly,” Vogt says.
Vogt explains how his office reaches that 1.0 for Morgan County’s equalized assessed value.
“We do that by applying what’s called ‘township equalization,’ and that is in conjunction with sales studies done by the state to make sure that our level of assessments within the city of Jacksonville and Waverly and Meredosia are all assessed correctly,” says Vogt.
According to Vogt, last year Morgan County had an 1.0171 state multiplier due to changes made from the assessor’s level to the board of review level. Prior to last year, Vogt says Morgan County’s state multiplier was identical to this year’s for a number of years.