Winnebago County property values hit highest mark ever, and bigger tax bills could follow

By Kevin Haas
Rock River Current
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ROCKFORD — The taxable value of property across Winnebago County has hit its highest mark on record, and rising values are contributing to bigger tax bills for most residents.

The countywide equalized assessed value of property this year is more than $5.8 billion, nearly $3 million more than the previous record in 2009, according to the Winnebago County Supervisor of Assessments Office.

Home and business owners in the county can still challenge what assessors say their property is worth, which could reduce the total taxable value in the county. The county’s Board of Review will hear challenges after today’s deadline to submit complaints passes and hearings are held in the coming months.

“While this value will be reduced slightly at the Board of Review level, it will still end up surpassing the previous high water mark set in 2009 of $5,546,395,880,” Winnebago County Supervisor of Assessments Tom Hodges said in an email to the Rock River Current. “The 2022 countywide EAV is up more than 35% from 2015.”

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Few people have challenged their property values so far, likely because the hot real estate market has home sale prices soaring to record levels. A similar scenario played out last year when there were just 750 challenges issued, the lowest level since 673 in 1993.

As of Tuesday, the county assessment office had received 231 complaints compared to 311 at that time last year.

Average tax bill up about 2%

One area where there is seldom a lack of complaints is on property tax bills. Winnebago County has one of the highest average property taxes in the country, ranking 151 out of 3,143 counties ranked, according to a calculation by Tax-Rates.org.

This year, about 85% of taxpayers saw an increase on their bill, according to Hodges’ calculations. Most of of the increases were by less than 2%.

What you pay in property taxes is largely determined by two factors: the taxable value of your home and how much local governments decided to collect through their levy. If your property value stays the same but governments opt to increase how much they collect, your tax rate rises and you pay more. But, depending on how much the value of your home rises, you can still pay more even when the tax rate drops.

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The latter scenario is one that seems to have played out on this year’s tax bills. Even though the tax rates fell in Rockford and across the county, most bills were up by a small amount as countywide values rose about $3 million. Now, values have risen again.

Of the 116,971 properties that received a tax bill both last year and this year, 99,741 of those taxpayers paid more. There were seven bills that were unchanged, according to Hodges’ data. The median dollar increase was $62.48.

While this year’s bills are already set, decisions local governments make over the next four months will determine how much you pay next year.

A push to hold the line

To that end, Mayor Tom McNamara is leading a charge to pressure local government bodies to commit to leaving their levy flat this year. That “flat levy,” as government leaders often describe it, is a commitment not to collect more taxes from property owners than the previous year.

The city of Rockford slightly reduced its levy in two of the last five years and it has not increased the amount it collects in nine years. McNamara said City Council members will hold the levy flat for a 10th year when the matter comes before them later this year.

“I’m urging all of the taxing bodies to keep that levy flat,” McNamara said. “I understand it can be incredibly difficult times. As families are facing inflation, so are taxing bodies, but I think we owe it to our citizens, especially this year as they are facing incredible economic pressures, specifically from inflation.”

By keeping its levy flat, the city has left an estimated $72 million in property taxes in the hands of home and business owners over the past five years, according to city finance estimates.

Late last month, McNamara, a Democrat, and Republican Alderman Kevin Frost sent emails and letters to business owners across the city to ask for their help in pressuring all government bodies to hold the line on property taxes.

Doing so, McNamara estimates, could help the city further drop its tax rate from this year’s 12.25%.

“We have an opportunity as a city to get that property tax rate in the 10s, high 10s, but in the 10s,” McNamara said. “We haven’t been there in well over a decade.”

The last time taxpayers saw a rate below 11% was in 2009, when the rate for the largest tax code in the city was 10.64%.

“Municipalities and units of governments run on various fiscal cycles,” Frost and McNamara wrote in the letter. “Some begin in October, so decisions are being made now.”

Multiple taxing bodies make up your bill in the city of Rockford. The majority of the property taxes you pay go toward the school district, but your rate is also determined by how much is collected by the Rockford Park District, Rockford Public Library, Rockford Township, Rock Valley College, Winnebago County, Forest Preserves of Winnebago County, Four Rivers Sanitation Authority and the Chicago Rockford International Airport.

“We’re making progress, but we need all of the taxing bodies, even some of the smallest taxing bodies” to hold the line on taxes, McNamara said. “This is a great year that we can all do our part and provide a little bit of relief.”

This article is by Kevin Haas. Email him at khaas@rockrivercurrent.com or follow him on Twitter at @KevinMHaas or Instagram @thekevinhaas.