Understanding Your Property Tax Bill

Homeowners all across Boone County pay property taxes to support a variety of state and county services. It is important to understand how your property tax bill is created and who sets the tax rate.

First, let’s review the property tax bill. As you will see in the provided example, each taxing district is listed, followed by their tax rate, the taxable valuable of the property, and the tax amount. Contrary to popular belief the County Government does not control the tax rates of other districts.

Taxing District	Tax Rate per $100	Taxable Property Value	Tax Amount Owed
State	.1190	$200,000	$238.00
Boone County	.0980	$200,000	$196.00
School District	.6490	$200,000	$1,298.00
Library District	.0460	$200,000	$92.00
Health District	.0210	$200,000	$42.00
Extension District	.0170	$200,000	$34.00
Burlington Fire	.1700	$200,000	$340.00
911 Service Dwelling Fee			$75.00
Gross Tax Due			$2,315.00

 

In this example there are seven taxing districts on the property tax bill, it includes State, County, and other local taxing districts that are collected by the County Sheriff’s Office. However, depending on where you live, the number of taxing districts, the tax rate of your local fire board, and taxable value on your property tax bill will vary. In addition, if you live within a city limit such as Florence, Union, or Walton, your city’s property tax rate will not appear on this bill because it is collected independently by the city and not by the county.

The seven taxing districts in this example are broken down as such: The State’s tax rate, which is set by the Commonwealth of Kentucky, goes to the state’s general fund. The County tax rate as is set by the Boone County Fiscal Court, an elected body, made up of the three County Commissioners and the County Judge Executive.  The School’s tax rate is set by the local district school board, which is also an elected body. The remaining Health, Extension, Library and Fire district tax rates are also set by their board, which consists of a mixture of elected members and board appointees.

The highlighted area in the example is the County’s portion of the tax bill. In this particular case it represents just eight and half percent (8.4%) of the overall tax bill. Your portion of that tax bill provides the funding to operate services such as the county jail, law enforcement, county roads, the department of public works, animal control, parks and recreation, social services, and much more.