Media Contact: Anette Spickard, Assessor, 541-682-6798

Lane County taxpayers will receive their 2011-12 property tax statements beginning October 24, 2011. Tax statements will also be available on the County website on October 24, 2011.

Approximately 172,000 statements will be mailed this year. Tax statements will be mailed on Monday, October 24, 2011, and the first payment is due Tuesday, November 15, 2011.

The Lane County Assessor/Tax Collector collects property tax on behalf of 83 separate taxing districts including cities, schools, education service districts, water districts, rural fire districts, urban renewal districts and other taxing districts such as park and recreation, library and ambulance districts.

The total property tax certified to collect for all tax levies combined in 2011 is $404.1 million. This is approximately 1 percent more than the total of all taxes levied in 2010 which was $400.3 million. The addition of new local option levies and bonds approved by voters, the expiration of levies, the 3 percent statutory increase in assessed values, and the addition of new construction to the tax roll all contributed to the change in property tax to be collected this year.

90 percent of residential properties in Lane County still have an assessed value lower than their real market value and therefore will continue to see the statutory 3 percent increase in their assessed value even though sales of homes continue to show a declining market. On average, residential property owners will pay tax on 79 percent of their home’s real market value in 2011.

The 2011 tax statement reflects your property’s real market value as of January 1, 2011. This is based on the sales activity of the 2010 real estate market which overall in Lane County showed a 4.5 percent decrease in residential property value. Property values for tax purposes are set only once a year at the time of certification in early October. Oregon does not reset property values at the time of sale as in California, nor does it reset property values for tax purposes at the time of a refinanced loan.

Oregon’s constitution limits the increase in maximum assessed value of each property to 3 percent per year, unless there have been changes made to the property. The most common reasons a property’s assessed value grows more than 3 percent is new construction or additions, new partitions or subdivisions, removal from special assessment or exemption programs, or changes in zoning and use of the property.

The total taxable value for all properties in Lane County after the Measure 50 constitutional limits were applied to all accounts has increased by 2.6 percent over last year, from $26 billion in 2010 to $26.7 billion in 2011. This reflects the 3 percent increase in assessed value for most properties plus the assessable portion of new construction that occurred in 2010 that was added to the tax roll.

New construction activity in 2010 added $531.3 million in Real Market Value to the tax roll. This was 16.6 percent less than what was added to the roll in 2010 reflecting a lower level of permit activity.  This combined with another decline in the overall real estate market in 2010 brought Lane County’s January 1, 2011 Real Market Value to $46.5 billion.  This is an overall decrease of 1.5 percent from January 1, 2010.

Typical single family homes in most areas of the county experienced decreases in value (Eugene -2.9 percent, Springfield -4 percent). Areas of the county that saw the largest changes to market values were on the coast where the real estate market has been more volatile (ranging from 13.9 percent decrease in the Dunes City area to a 17.4 percent decrease within the Mapleton area). A typical home in Lane County showed a -4.2 percent change in value.

The change in tax an individual property owner will see depends on the area the property is located. Voters in the past year have approved changes to the tax levies and bond rates which are then applied to the property’s assessed value. However Oregon’s constitution limits the total tax rate that can be billed to an individual property to no more than $10 per $1,000 of market value for government and $5 per $1,000 of market value for schools. The limits do not apply to bonds.

Changes to levies that will appear on the 2011 tax statement are:

Eugene/Springfield area:

• Voters approved a new $70 million bond for the Eugene School District to be paid over the next 21 years.
• The City of Eugene library local option levy ended and will no longer be billed.
• Voters renewed the City of Springfield’s 5-year local option levy for fire services with a lower rate of 36 cents per $1,000 of assessed value.
• Voters renewed the Rainbow Water District 4-year levy for a total of $561,731 per year, up from $488,462.

Florence area:

• The Siuslaw School District reduced the amount it will collect to pay their bond from $1,722,014 in 2010 to $1,417,879.
• Voters approved annexation of all City of Florence property into the Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue district.  City property owners will now see the fire district levy added to their tax bills. However, the city reduced its rate by 39 cents and the fire district reduced its rate by 67 cents.

Other areas:

• The Pleasant Hill School District reduced the amount it will collect to pay their bond from $1,016,924 in 2010 to $872,245.
• The Lowell Rural Fire Protection District is no longer collecting for their bond.
• All property in the Blue River Water District was annexed into the Upper McKenzie Rural Fire Protection District and those properties will now see the fire district’s levy on their tax bill.
• The state fire patrol surcharge for the State Forester remains the same at $47.50.  The charge per acre for the East district went up from $1.0271 to $1.1938 and the West district from $0.7437 to $0.8924.

Attached is an advance copy of the property tax insert that will be mailed with each tax statement. The insert has additional information on payments, the location of payment drop boxes, appeals, and other services provided by the Department of Assessment and Taxation.

Also attached are two charts. One showing the median assessed value and tax rates for different areas of the county and one showing the real market value and percent change between 2010 and 2011.

2011 Tax Time Insert
2011 Real Market Value
2011 Calculated Taxes AVR



Amber Fossen

Public Information Officer

Lane County Government

125 E. Eighth Ave.

Eugene, Oregon 97401

(541) 682.3718

(541) 359.9143 (cell)