Of the 275 cities evaluated, nearly 90% chose to increase the property tax pain on their residents.
Any Iowans looking at their property tax bills can see that they keep going up year after year, but how much exactly? And how much property tax pain are you and your family about to experience from the spending decisions your locally elected officials are making?
ITR Foundation has compiled the year-over-year changes in property taxes and population for cities in Iowa with a population above 1,000. While there are more than 900 cities across the state, we calculated the pain for 275 of those cities. Statewide, cities are increasing their property tax collections by more than six percent (+6.6%). This increase is on top of other increases: more than seven percent for counties (+7.6%) and more than five percent for school districts (+5.4%). Combined, Iowans will spend more than $6 billion in property taxes to fund local government next year.
Even without the burden of counties and school districts, of the 275 cities evaluated, nearly 90% chose to increase the property tax pain on their residents. Twenty-two cities caused Unspeakable Pain according to ITR’s scale, meaning they increased their property tax revenue per person by more than 20%. Another 73 cities imposed Excruciating Pain (+9-20%); 51 Severe Pain (+6-9%); 37 Moderate Pain (+4-6%); and 63 Mild Pain (+0-4%). Taxpayers will avoid pain from city governments in only the 29 cities with no per capita increase. The city with the largest reduction was Winterset, reducing their property tax pain by 35.6%.
Those cities increasing their property tax revenue per capita by more than 20% are the winners of this year’s city property tax pain award. The largest increases include:
If these property tax increases are too much for you to bear, ITR Foundation has discussed a remedy in these three posts:
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