By Mark Waite
Property tax rates will go up slightly this year for local property owners. Again the culprit is the town of Pahrump.
The combined property tax rate for the fiscal year that began July 1 for a Pahrump property owner will increase from $3.3015 per $100 of valuation to $3.3752.
That’s still well below small communities like Tonopah at $3.6399, Beatty at $3.3364, and Amargosa Valley at $3.6567, which kept their tax rates, but are near the maximum tax cap of $3.64 per $100 of valuation allowed by state law.
That rate can be exceeded with a taxpayer-approved override.
The town of Pahrump hiked its tax rate from 37.04 cents per $100 of valuation to 43.08 cents this year.
Last year, the town increased its tax from 24.3 cents, which accounted for the increase in the combined Pahrump property tax last year from $3.14 per $100 to $3.30.
The Pahrump town tax rate was raised as an issue by County Commissioner Joni Eastley recently in response to printed remarks by Pahrump Town Board Chairman Vicky Parker that the county has trouble balancing its budget, but the town comes in under budget every year.
Parker’s comments were turned back on her by Eastley, who noted the 52 percent town tax increase enacted July 1, 2011; their discussion occurred when the county commission on July 3 decided to put a question on this November’s ballot to downgrade the Pahrump town board to advisory board status.
The Pahrump Library District also had a slight increase in the tax rate effective July 1 from .0662 cents to .0781 cents per $100; the Pahrump swimming pool tax rate went up from .0131 cents to .0145 cents.
Town of Pahrump Finance Director Mike Sullivan was on vacation and unable to explain the reason for the tax rate increases.
“Those are the rates that were given to us by the state of Nevada. They have a justification for the reasoning,” Pahrump Town Manager Bill Kohbarger said. “It was talked about, everybody knew about it and it was approved.”
The tax rate is compensation for the declining economy, to keep the town revenues up to standard, Kohbarger said.
The Pahrump Town Board was asked the last two years in a row whether they wanted to keep the old tax rate and they declined, in favor of the tax rate recommended by the Nevada Department of Taxation, he said.
Taxable property values dropped from $1.07 billion to $1.033 billion excluding redevelopment. But the net proceeds of mining increased county property values to $1.23 billion.
Nye County officials whittled down a $2.7 million deficit by instituting 38-hour work weeks, cutting overtime in half and a freeze on employee raises and STEP increases.
School district unions agreed to wage cuts of 1.75 percent to 2 percent to avoid layoffs.
The various Nye County communities have tax rates for library districts, in Amargosa Valley, Beatty, Pahrump, Tonopah and the Smoky Valley Library District.
The bulk of the property tax, amounting to $2.8518 per $100 of valuation, is made up of the state, county and school district tax rate.
A person who lives in rural areas of the county outside communities like Pahrump, Amargosa Valley, Tonopah, Gabbs, Round Mountain, Beatty and Manhattan would pay just that tax rate.
Nye County kept its $1.3468 per $100 tax rate, of which almost $1 goes to the general fund, the rest are tax revenues dedicated to the agriculture extension, medical indigent funds, museum, health clinic, juvenile probation, a capital projects tax, youth services, even a 911 emergency tax.
The state of Nevada taxes property at 17 cents per $100. School districts statewide have a tax of 75 cents per $100.
The Nye County School District adds 58.5 cents per $100 for debt service, for a combined school tax rate of $1.335 per $100.
In addition to the property taxes, property owners pay a $30 per parcel fee for the landfill fund, which was just made permanent by county commissioners.
A $5 per parcel fee to operate the Nye County Water District and a $1 assessment to the state engineer’s office for properties in Pahrump and Amargosa Valley.
Properties are taxed at 35 percent of their assessed value. That means a home valued at $100,000 would only be taxed on $35,000.
If a Pahrump property owner didn’t experience any change in their property appraisal and didn’t have any other exemptions, their tax bill for that $100,000 property, taxed at $35,000, would increase from $1,155.52 to $1,181.32, an increase of $25.80.
Property taxes can be paid in quarterly installments; they are due the third Monday of August, the first Monday in October, the first Monday in January and the first Monday in March.
Partial property tax exemptions are available to widows, orphans, veterans, disabled veterans and blind people who meet certain requirements.
A senior citizen tax assistance rental rebate is available to persons 62 years or older whose annual household income is not greater than $21,500.
Glad to see they “balanced their budget” again. On our backs.
Other towns in Nye managed to keep afloat without raising taxes? Wonder what they did and maybe Pahrump should check with them to see how it is done.
I’m not entirely sure, but I don’t think any of the other towns in the county have paid firefighters.
Neither do they have 30,000+ people.
Raising taxes to line their pockets….well I sure will vote to dissolve the board. Now I know why people are moving. Increase taxes in this economy….
Go figure, like we didn’t see this coming!
The key to the tax increase was in the text. The tax rate is compensation for the declining economy, to keep the town revenues up to standard, Kohbarger said. Well in my book the town needs to tighten it’s belt just like the rest of us taxpayers do. That was a terrible reason to give us for an increase. The politicians are out of touch with the economy. They think they can just did further into OUR wallets to suit themselves. NOT much longer BUCKO.
Unfortunately Mr. Barton, things are going to get worse. A lot worse. And the name of the game will be huge increases in real estate property taxes. Most cities are technically broke. Today, government thinks it is their right to demand money and provide nothing in return. Many American’s leave the cities and some leave the country, They vote with their feet. Those who do leave cannot be taxed.
You will see property taxes start to rise exponentially because it has nothing to do with income. If you can’t pay, well sorry – then they get to take the property and sell it. Taxes will rise where income is no longer an issue. They are chasing the rich out – someone has to pay for public servants to live.
If the people of Pahrump had gumption, they would storm the town board when they are meeting and ask for their resignation. But we are not the land of the free……..and certainly not the home of the brave with so many people getting a government subsistence they are afraid to even open up their mouths and get involved..
just remember
THAT WHICH CANNOT BE PAID WILL NOT BE PAID
rise up
and rise up again
until lambs become lions
Thanks again Kohbarger, screwing the residents out of more money to build your little “City”. Where is my compensation for the declining economy? Oh that’s right, you want to gentrify the town and push people on fixed incomes out!
And a special thanks to once again.. VICKY Parker for bringing the issue up.
Anyone else tired of this town board, Vote them out in November. Advisory board only. Hopefully what I have been saying for the last year.. people might NOW pay attention to it since its hitting them in their pocket books.
Vote the town board down already before they raise our rates again.
Governments like our town and county don’t make any money.
They have to tax the people to pay their bills.
At some point they will push to the point that we will rebel.
I am in favor of making the town board an advisory board.
Right now I think the bunch of them could be replaced by a bent trash can and no one would notice.
“Those are the rates that were given to us by the state of Nevada. They have a justification for the reasoning,” Pahrump Town Manager Bill Kohbarger said. “It was talked about, everybody knew about it and it was approved.”
Oh, so it’s the Department of Taxation’s fault that the tax rate was increased? Seems that it would be pretty easy to contact someone there and find out if this is true. Wasn’t this what they said last year, too? That it wasn’t their fault taxes were increased, the state told them to do it?
Contact Warner Ambrose in Department of Taxation Local Government Finance at wambrose@tax.state.nv.us for your answer. He can probablly tell you how this went down.
Many thanks. I believe I may just do that.
This jerk FASCIST Kolbarger has to go!
His “Shut the ‘F’ up attitude is the reason people in this town want to get rid of the Town Board and HIM!
“Those are the rates that were given to us by the state of Nevada. They have a justification for the reasoning,” Pahrump Town Manager Bill Kohbarger said. “It was talked about, everybody knew about it and it was approved.”
There is no such thing as tightening the belt and cutting back on foolish spending when all you need to do is raise property taxes.
I agree with the other poster. I’d rather have a discarded Coke bottle in office than any of the current lot.
Count on my vote to make them an advisory board.
Get rid of Town Manager Kohbarger & that will save Pahrump $125,000 a yr in his salary & about 1 million a yr in bad managing!
I wonder if all income avenues have been explored prior to taking the east way out and just raising taxes. Are aggressive measures taken to collect past due property taxes? There appears to be a lot of abandoned homes and land in this county, who is making sure those taxes are paid? Are the banks paying the property taxes on foreclosed properties? I would like to see a yearly list published in the local paper listing the names of people, banks, and business owing back sales and property taxes. That would certainly help my decision on where to shop.
On another note; I am all for supporting the Library with my property taxes if they are using those funds wisely. They are clearly not using it for website design, or up to date services like a digital library. They do seem to have a lot of employees who appear to dislike their positions judging by their attitudes. Maybe it’s time to clean that house and start over with people that would be happy to have a job.
“The tax rate is compensation for the declining economy, to keep the town revenues up to standard, Kohbarger said.”
All you Govt cronies both federal and local need to realize that the people that you are susposed to represent are fed up with constant raising of taxes and we are gonna vote every one of your sorry cabooses out of your cushy little high paid(non deserved)chairs that give you the power to rip us off. We see it everywhere from gas to food to electricity, prices going up to “compensate” for the bad economy. Hello! We are in a bad economy too, everything is being raised except our paychecks. Where do you Govt officials and Corporate COE’s think that we the people are going to get all this extra money from. It’s not like we can go out and get a second job any more, heck most are having trouble getting just one job. Thanks for adding to our misery, JERKS! Oh well well see how you like being jobless in November.
I am sure they sent the Tax bills to those who have forclosed on the unocupied homes. along with upkeep bills, if not we need to start screaming loud!!! add lots of fines if they are llate, like the IRS does to home owners
Well, Mr. Kohbarger, the cat is out of the bag. There was no need to raise the property tax. The Net ending asset for the year ending 2011 was 18,400,000. That means after 7 years(2005 – 2011) the Town of Pahrump has approximately 2.68 million in the general fund. The taxpayers should be revolting and Tar and Feather your *ss. For that stupid statement in the paper about the State making you raise the limit. The State only advisors you on the amount of taxes. You think most of us are mindless humans but we are not.