Taxable value rises 4.47% countywide; heavy rollback reduces county tax rate to 5.2023

Tim, Eaton County’s director of equalization and property description, reported to the Ways and Means Committee on May 16 that the countywide taxable value increased 4.47% this year. Tim said the largest local increases included a roughly 10.9% rise reported for the City of Olivet and double-digit and mid-single-digit increases in other jurisdictions he listed.

Tim also presented the county’s heavy-roll back (also referred to as the Headley rollback) calculations. After accounting for exclusions such as Renaissance zones and disabled-veteran exemptions, the countywide heavy-roll back factor was 0.9986. Using that calculation, Tim said the county tax rate will be 5.2023 — a reduction from an earlier projection of 5.5.

Tim noted some local jurisdictions had substantially different rollbacks: the City of Olivet experienced a large rollback (0.9748 in Tim’s report), while Delta Township, Union Township and Roxanne Township did not have rollbacks this year. He also said taxable-value increases vary by jurisdiction and that commercial appeals remain active in a small number of cases, including a long-running appeal involving Walmart in Delta Township and a recently filed appeal by Auto-Owners related to new development.

Tim brought forward a PA 116 enrollment item — three parcels in Calamillo Township totaling about 269 acres entering a 20-year agreement — and the committee moved and passed that item as standard practice.

Tim said revenue-sharing and state reporting practices require the county to account for certain exemptions when calculating rollback factors and that those ongoing adjustments complicate the heavy-roll back process because exempt categories can change throughout the year.