COUNTY RAISES PROPERTY TAX RATE.

Byline: PHAEDRA HAYWOOD

Budget increases, decrease in value prompt change

By Phaedra Haywood

The New Mexican

New tax rates released by Santa Fe County for the 2009 tax year indicate homeowners will see a modest increase in their property tax rates. Owners of vacant or commercial property will see a steeper jump.

The rate for residential properties inside the city of Santa Fe increased by 1.21 percent, to 19.61 mills from 19.38 mills. The rate for nonresidential properties increased 5.96 percent, to 29.14 mills for 2009 from 27.50 mills in 2008.

The mill rate corresponds to the rate of taxes on each $1,000 of assessed property value.

For example: The owner of a home inside the city of Santa Fe that has a market rate of $300,000 (and is assessed for tax purposes at one-third of that, or $100,000) will pay $1,961 in property taxes this coming year, as opposed to about $1,938 last year.

A commercial property owner, who would have paid about $2,750 on $100,000 of taxable value last year, will pay $2,914 this year.

Increases in the budgets of taxing entities such as local governments and schools are one of the reasons that property tax rates increase.

"They're spending more, plain and simple," said County Assessor Domingo Martinez.

But other factors can contribute as well.

According to Department of Finance spokeswoman Nicole Gillespe, the total value of nonresidential properties in the county decreased substantially this year because of "negative valuation maintenance" -- or a drop in the total value of vacant property already on the books. That means the tax burden that is borne by nonresidential properties is being spread among fewer taxpayers.

State Property Tax Director Rick Silva said an actual decrease in property values is just one of several factors that could result in negative valuations.

A large number of property value protests is another, because protested valuations cannot be included in the total when rates are calculated, Silva said. Santa Fe County had more protested valuations this year than it has had in at least five years.

Silva said nonresidential properties across the state tend to be undervalued because of the way they are assessed -- on a case-by-case basis -- without the control of actual affidavits of sale prices that are available for residential properties.

Properties that are miscategorized can also cause a reduction in the overall value of nonresidential property, according to Silva.

When vacant land is improved, it is transferred to the residential category, which also causes a reduction in the total value of nonresidential properties.

Martinez said his staff's ongoing transfer of Santa Fe County's paper records to a new computer-aided mass-appraisal system resulted in many properties converting to residential as improvements were discovered.

Property tax bills will go out Nov. 1, and taxpayers must pay the first-half payment no later than Dec. 11 in order to not be considered delinquent.