Property tax primer today in Post Falls

Post Falls will host a free property tax workshop this evening at 5 in the basement conference room at City Hall.

City Administrator Shelly Enderud will facilitate a conversation with city staff and the general public about the methodology the state of Idaho uses to calculate property taxes.

The workshop comes on the heels of Idaho House Bill 409, which passed into the Senate last week. The bill proposes a one-year freeze on property tax rates, a move that would likely impact rapidly growing communities in Kootenai County.

Post Falls Mayor Ron Jacobson wrote a letter to Sen. Don Cheatham encouraging him to oppose the bill.

“HB 409 does nothing to address the cause of residential property tax increases,” Jacobson wrote. “The recent increases in residential property tax are mainly due to the values of residential properties increasing faster than the values of commercial or industrial properties.”

Over the last four tax years, even though the city of Post Falls has not increased tax rates for city residents, any residential property whose value increased by more than 30% during that time saw a tax increase. At the same time, many commercial and industrial properties within the city received a tax decrease.

Enderud will explain how residential units absorb the shift in property values, in addition to looking toward solutions. The city expects the economy to cool and the values of commercial and industrial properties to rise relative to residential properties.

Enderud will introduce some possible tax stabilization solutions and discuss the city’s next steps as they await the state Senate vote on HB 409.