The Marshall County property tax statements payable in September 2021 and March 2022 have been printed and sent to your mailbox. When you look at your tax statement you will see a detailed tax distribution breakdown of where your tax dollars go; to your school district, city, county, township and more. This fiscal year the Marshall County Treasurer’s Office is certified to collect $62.7 million in property taxes. This figure is up 3.13 percent from last year.

A portion of this increase is directly correlated to new value across our county, as growth is what we want for our communities. It is important to note, your taxes will go up when taxing authorities request more of your tax dollars than the new value of growth. Here is a look at the largest pieces of the total pie and percentage increase from last year:

• Marshalltown School District: $18.9 million, up 1 percent

• Marshall County: $14.3 million, up 5 percent

• City of Marshalltown: $13.4 million, up 4 percent

• Iowa Valley Community College District: $8.9 million, up 8 percent

• East Marshall School District: $4.3 million, up 4 percent

• West Marshall School District: $3.7 million, up 1 percent

• Green Mountain-Garwin School District: $2.2 million, up 3 percent

• City of State Center: $574,000, up 3 percent

• City of Albion: $125,000, up 22 percent

(Amounts include annual debt repayment and TIF districts)

Agriculture Land Rollback Increases Again: Last year farmers saw a 15 percent-25 percent property tax increase due to the Iowa Department of Revenue’s increase in the agriculture land rollback in addition to the tax authority property tax asking increase. This year the agriculture land rollback slightly increased from 81.5 percent to 84 percent. While this increase is smaller than last year, I would urge our state government to revisit the computation of the rollback as our Ag community had a large disproportionate increase in taxes last year. Currently as we enter an inflationary period, it is not the time to stifle the agriculture economy with high property taxes.

Iowa Valley Community College Highlight: Iowa Valley Community College District (IVCCD) is a local taxing authority who has made wise long term financial decisions to benefit taxpayers. In November 2019 the public voted for IVCCD’s $32 million general obligation bond referendum. The taxpayers saw the beginning of the bond payback on their taxes last year, which doubled tax asking from the prior year and up 8 percent this year. My office has received several inquiries about this increase as citizens paid their taxes. In review of IVCCD’s financials for the past decade, IVCCD has increased its tax asking on average by just 1.65 percent annually. This amount includes the bond payback. How did IVCCD accomplish this? Ten years ago they asked the taxpayers for $7.7 million while today it is $8.9 million. In the past decade when revenues dropped, IVCCD made the hard decisions to cut spending. Additionally they lowered their tax asking as prior bonds rolled off, which resulted in a decrease to $4.27 million in collection year 2019-20. This opened the door for an investment in the future of the college with a responsible bond referendum. IVCCD’s spending cuts and wise debt financing is a recipe for financial success to keep their portion of your taxes low and make a $32 million investment for the future to educate our citizens and enhance their job training programs for our community.

How to Pay: Property taxes are due Thursday September 30th in the Marshall County Treasurer’s Office which is located on the 2nd Floor of the Downtown Great Western Bank in Marshalltown. Online payments can be made at www.iowatreasurers.org. Payments can be sent by mail to Marshall County Treasurer, 1 E Main St, Marshalltown, IA 50158.

Marshall County property information can be found at www.marshallcountyproperty.com. Anyone with questions regarding property tax inquiries should contact the Marshall County Treasurer’s Office at 641-844-2730 or Treasure

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Jarret P. Heil is the Marshall County Treasurer