You’re not the only one worried about the value of your home — or all those pesky foreclosed houses driving down the market.
Money from property taxes pays for fire service, and firefighters around the county are worried that 2012 is going to be another bad year for property values.
Your taxes pay for their jobs. Declining property values could add up to fewer firefighters.
The Snohomish County Assessor’s Office plans to announce Monday an overview of 2012 property value numbers.
A couple of fire district leaders around the county have mentioned to me in recent weeks that they were waiting for these numbers before making any big decisions about next year.
Declining property values in recent years have significantly impacted cash flow for fire districts and fire departments. Many have been cutting back on spending.
Cutbacks already have included waiting to replace older apparatus, trying to share apparatus with other districts, letting go of staffers and leaving vacancies unfilled.
Notices of 2012 assessed values are scheduled to go out to residential property owners next week and to commercial property owners the following week, County Assessor Cindy Portmann said Friday afternoon.
The numbers are called “proposed values” for now because people have 60 days to appeal the assessed value of their property. Values that aren’t appealed get locked in after 60 days, she said.
The assessor’s office has been in contact with fire districts and kept them in the loop, Portmann said.
“We’ve shared as much information as we could with them in lieu of waiting for the final numbers to come out,” she said.
Portmann gave a presentation on the topic to a group of fire commissioners in Oso earlier this spring, she said.
A class is scheduled next week for anyone in the fire service, including district commissioners, who need help understanding what it all means.
Here are two lengthier explanations of the whole shebang on the county’s website:
How levies work: here.
Last year’s report: here.
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