 The state released the county's final multiplier last week, and the
bills were being prepared in the county treasurer's office this week
to go out next week. First installments will be due July 30, with
second installments due on Sept. 1.A typical year
By state of Illinois regulation, the earliest possible date that
bills might be ready for sending out would be May 1, but in
practical terms, it would seem that no county would be able to
actually do that. It is a complex, multi-step process that involves
many entities and overlapping tax district.
Once the bills are sent, payment is due in 30 days.
Logan County hasn't had tax bills out before June 1 for many
years, county finance chairman Chuck Ruben said. Others involved
with the process agreed that the beginning of June is about the
earliest possible date for any county.
Delays are usually caused by waiting for figures from collar
counties that have districts overlapping with Logan County. County
Clerk Sally Litterly needs their levy information to do the
extensions. McLean and one other county run late every year,
preparers say.
An alternative would be to do as McLean County does: go to an
accelerated taxing system. This involves sending two tax bills a
year. The first bill is half of the previous year's bill, and the
second bill integrates any changes in the balance due. Some counties
do this because it gets their districts some money early, according
to Rosanne Brosamer, supervisor of assessments. "But it's also
costing their county a lot of money," she said. It doubles the
processing and delivery costs -- postage, envelopes, bills and work
-- she said.
Overhaul of assessment system completed
If you were passing by the assessor's office late this spring,
you may have heard a collective sigh of relief the day they wrapped
up this year's property assessments. This is the office where the
biggest changes in the property tax system have occurred recently.
Brosamer has spent the last two years implementing new
state-mandated technological advances that have brought Logan County
into the 21st century.
The primary purpose of the advancements is to more accurately
assess land use, farmland and production. This year's assessments on
farmland used the new Logan County Geographic Information System and
either Bulletin 810 and Bulletin 811.
What is GIS and how is it used for land assessment?
The creation of the Logan County GIS began in 2004, when the
entire county was over-flown and computer-aided ortho-digital
photography was collected. Engineering specialists were then hired
to assemble photos into a map. Streets, major landmarks and parcel
lines were added later.
The GIS performs much like Google Earth. In the base layer you
have a map. With a photo layer you can see detailed land features
and structures.
Other overlays provide more specific and accurate geographic data
that now contributes to an assessment value of farm property.
Land use
Land use now distinguishes between cropland, other farmland,
permanent pastures, waste acres and structures. Aerial photos
provide a more accurate depiction of how the land is being used.
Brosamer said that GIS shows "what
portion is cropland, what portion is in timber, what portion is in
waterways and so on." She added
that many differences in land use were found between the new, more
accurate parcel maps and the old 1969-1981 maps.
Soil
Soil use, soil type, slope, erosion and flood plain areas, and
other factors that affect crop production, are meshed with historical
crop production data in an assessment of farmland.
An extensive soil survey was conducted by the USDA Department of
Natural Resources Conservation Service. That information was put
into the soil overlay for GIS. According to University of Illinois
researchers, more than 80 new soil types and soil complexes have
been identified on Illinois county soil survey maps since the year
2000.
The end result, using the GIS, is that parcel divisions are more
precise, land features can be seen, and soil types can be collected
for a more accurate evaluation of farmland.
"As expected, there were some glitches to work through during the
processes," Brosamer said. Such as last year, the new parcel maps
were used and later found to have errors in them that affected
properties with flood plains. If a parcel had any acres in flood
plain, the entire parcel was labeled as flood plain. "This creates a
big problem if you would take an 80-acre farm that has only 3 acres
that flood and 80 acres are debased," Brosamer said.
About 850 farmland parcels were affected. In assessments that
sounds like a huge amount, but in tax dollars on farm ground it's
not, she said. Once the errors were discovered, the option to rebill
was weighed and determined not to be cost-effective.
[to top of second column] |
Farm assessments normally vary from one year to the next, and
this year is the first to fully use the new mapping, land-use, farm
productivity system, Brosamer said.
The 2007 assessments applied Bulletin 810 -- using certified rates
per acre for farmland acreage.
This year, the 2008 assessment implemented the new productivity
indexes, using soil mapping and the GIS land-use tables.
"It's been two years putting the two pieces together," Brosamer
said. It really shouldn't have been; we really should have done it
all at once, but the company putting together the parcel mapping
couldn't get the project finished in that time, she explained.
Because it was a divided, two-year process, and with last year's
land-use errors corrected, some farm bills went up more than the cap
when the productivity indexes were applied. In total, the
assessments were higher this year, she said.
The county has approximately 17,000 parcels. But if you take off
the not-for-profit or nontaxable parcels, Brosamer said that it is
closer to 16,000 billable parcels.
Land productivity
In 2000, the Office of Research, College of Agricultural,
Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign, published two research bulletins that are also
part of assessing farmland values today. Bulletin 810 and Bulletin
811 provide productivity index ratings for Illinois soils. The
figures integrate 10-year crop yields and are recalculated each
year. A productivity index rating of the soil typically can move
only 10 percent.
The productivity index is a measure of crop production for a
certain soil type potential under optimum conditions.
The crop, pasture and forestry yields, and productivity index
ratings in Bulletin 810 are for the average level
of management used by all farmers in Illinois in the 1990s.
Bulletin 811 provides crop yields and productivity indexes
under an optimum level of management used by the top
16 percent of farmers in Illinois in the 1990s.
Previously all soil types and all the certified rates were added
together and divided by the number of acres. Today, each soil type
gets its own calculation and those are added together first.
Brosamer said that last year farmland assessed under Bulletin 810
was most affected by the application of the new soil layers. This
year's farmland was most affected by the land use.
This was a big project, "importing every property in the county
from GIS into our tax system," Brosamer said. "We'll never have that
magnitude again."
In the future, the process would be much simpler and quicker, she
said: "You put in the new farm rates; you import it; and you send
the new notices out."
[By
JAN YOUNGQUIST]
See Part 1 for
other details of the property tax system:
For more
information on Illinois soils and crop productivity, see the
following:
Logan County Unit,
University of Illinois Extension,
Agriculture & Natural Resources
Down on the left side is a link to the digital GIS soil survey.
Near the very bottom of the list is a link for soil productivity
indexes for B810 and B811. The 810 is average management used in
the tax assessments, while the 811 is with optimum conditions
and management and is used more for rental rates and
classifications.
Bulletin 810: Average Crop, Pasture, and
Forestry Productivity Ratings for Illinois Soils
(PDF)
Logan County
GIS
The Internet mapping
for Logan County can be found through the GIS page at
http://www.co.logan.il.us/gis/. Choose "Internet Mapping"
from the menu on the left side of the screen, and then select
"Public Mapping." Directions can be found under the "Help" menu on
the mapping site.
Past related articles
The largest technological advance in the
history of Logan County is about to go public
GIS progressing
New aerial digital photograph maps completed
Economic development ball rolling
Logan County Regional Planning Commission
(See No. 5 question and answer about GIS)
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