County raises tax levy for 2013

Nevada Daily Mail

On Tuesday, the Vernon County Commission held a public hearing during its regularly scheduled meeting and voted unanimously to raise the county tax levy from 16.53 cents to 18.31 cents per $100 assessed valuation.

During the short hearing, held in the commission's office on the second floor office of the Vernon County Courthouse, County Clerk Tammi Beach told commissioners "values are up a bit" but sales tax revenues are down approximately $31,452.93, so I am proposing our levy be raised. "We're going up very, very slightly," Beach said.

The tax levy is set each year according to statute and it is affected by the fact that the county collects sales tax. The amount the levy can be set at is capped at 0.3693 per $100 in valuation, but since the county collects sales tax, they can't legally levy more than 50 percent of that figure.

Beach told the commission that the valuation of real estate, railroad and utility and personal property in the county was $243,168,633 for the 2013 tax year, representing an increase over last year's valuation, which was $235,239,388.

The new year's valuation will show a slight increase in the county coffers; and that should bring in $455,344.67, Beach said, "if everybody pays their taxes."

Real estate makes up the largest portion of the property values. A total of $157,592,450 is assigned to the residential, agricultural, commercial and local railroad and utilities real estate holdings in the county. Personal property, countywide, is valued at $62,281,311 and the state assessed valuation of railroad /utility real estate and personal property is $23,294,872.

Beach said the difference in the two year's rates is small. She said if you have a $100 vehicle and pay a 18.31 cent tax rate per $100 assessed valuation on that vehicle the cost would be $18.31 compared to the previous year's cost of $16.53; a difference of $1.78.