Benton County property values increasing

BENTONVILLE -- Benton County officials say a report on the 2014 property assessment process gives another indication of the strength of the Northwest Arkansas economy.

County Clerk Tena O'Brien is preparing the annual report to the state Assessment Coordination Department. O'Brien said her office updates the information provided by the assessor's office after the Equalization Board has completed the process of hearing and ruling on taxpayer appeals.

County Property Tax

Benton County levies property taxes of 5 mills for the county’s general fund and 1.9 mills for the road fund. The county also levies a 0.2 mill tax to pay for rural ambulance service. The county has voluntary taxes that generate revenue for the Road Department, the Historical Preservation Commission and emergency medical services.

Source: Benton County

The report is broken down by school districts and further details the value of property in the cities and rural areas in each district.

Bear Chaney, assessor, said Benton County has been seeing steady growth of about 3 percent per year over the past few years. That growth in property value translates into growth in revenue for the county, cities, school districts and other entities that have property tax millage as a source of revenue.

"From 2013, which is the assessment year for taxes collected in 2014, to the 2014 assessment, which will be collected this year, the assessments went up by $132,137,260," Chaney said. "That's about a 2.8 percent increase. "

Chaney said assessments grew by $159,316,925 from the 2012 assessments to the 2013 assessments, which he said was a little more than 3 percent. Much of the growth has been in personal property, he said.

"Most of the growth from 2013 to 2014 was in personal property, which was up $119,983,020," he said. "A lot of that has to do with automobiles. According to our information roughly $25 million of that increase was in automobile sales."

Chaney said the county is also seeing an increase in business personal property, up about $8 million from 2013 to 2014, as his office works to keep up with new businesses.

"We know we have more businesses coming in," Cheney said. "We look in the newspaper, we check the filings in Tena's office and check the filings with the cities for new businesses. We have a team here in the office that works on business personal property. We have two people who go out into the field to check on new locations and one person in the office who tells them where they need to go. Also, while they're out checking these shopping centers and offices for new businesses they'll check the old ones to see who's moved out and if anybody new has moved in."

Building activity in Benton County is also strong, Chaney said. His office began tracking permits in the cities and in the county last year, he said.

"In 2014, as best we can tell, there were a little over 5,000 building permits from the cities and the county," he said. "That's a lot of permits. There's a lot going on in both business and personal property."

For Benton County, the growth in property value has been mirrored by growth in property tax revenue. Brenda Guenther, comptroller, said property tax revenue, which goes to both the general fund and the road fund, totalled $24,318,401 in 2014. The property tax revenue for 2013 totalled $23,363,113 and for 2012 the county received $23,082,508 in property taxes.

Tom Allen, justice of the peace for District 4 and chairman of the Finance Committee, said the growth in property value is a sign the county's finance are sound.

"That's another positive sign, coming on the heels of the most recent sales tax report and the five straight months of growth we've seen in that," Allen said.

Allen, who works in real estate and property development, said the numbers support his observations.

"It's not a surprise to me," he said. "It's what I've been predicting during some of these committee meetings over the last few months. You can drive around and see all of the development that's going on, particularly in the Rogers and Bentonville areas, but out in the county as well. It would be alarming to me if the values weren't going up."

Allen said the 3 percent increase from year to year rate is a solid, sustainable rate of growth.

"You don't want breakneck growth to the point you can't keep up with the infrastructure," he said "You know it's not sustainable over the long run. I think this is a pretty healthy growth pattern."

NW News on 02/28/2015

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