photo by: Nick Krug

Framers with Bowden Complete Construction carefully lift the gable wall for the front of a home on Silver Rain Road, Tuesday, April 19, 2016. New construction added 1 million in assessed valuation for 2015 according to figures provided by the Douglas County Appraiser's Office.

New figures published in the April newsletter of the Douglas County Appraiser’s Office show good news across the board for area taxing jurisdictions.

The figures dated March 31 show Douglas County, its cities and townships all registered assessed valuation increases from 2015. The city of Lawrence had the biggest jump among the county’s four cities with a 4.8 percent increase. The city’s total assessment for 2016 was $896.6 million, compared with $855.4 million for 2015.

Assessed valuation is the value of property for tax purposes. For example, residential homes are assessed at 11.5 percent of its appraised value or what they should fetch on the market, while commercial and industrial properties are assessed at 25 percent of their appraised value.

According to the figures, the county’s total assessment grew from $1.07 trillion to $1.12 trillion, a 4.6 percent increase. The increases will be welcome at budget time because higher assessed valuations equal more revenue for local governments.

While officials with the various jurisdictions welcomed the increases, they also offered words of caution. It’s early in the process, and the April figures could be trimmed back as property owners appeal 2016 valuations on their homes, businesses and farmland, they said. More up-to-date figures will be shared with county, city and township budget preparers in late June.

There’s another sign of a healthy local economy in the early numbers. No one thing, such as new construction, is driving the across-the-board increases.

“I can’t really put my finger on any one reason,” said Douglas County Appraiser Steve Miles said. “It’s just a number of things.”

For example, commercial and industrial property increased in assessed value from $278.8 million to $293.7 million; urban residential rose from $651 million to $675 million; and rural residential increased from $76.5 million to $78.2 million.

The uniform jurisdictional increases in assessed valuation did benefit from new construction, but that wasn’t as great of a factor as in recent years. The appraiser’s office found new construction accounted for $11 million of 2016’s total assessment, or about 1 percent of the value. That $11 million figure was the lowest amount of new construction in the county since 2009.

Building activity in Lawrence accounted for 38.3 percent of the county’s assessed value increase from new construction in 2016, while Eudora accounted for 2.8 percent and Baldwin City 0.4 percent.

In what may seem a paradox, overall assessed valuation of county agricultural land decreased while farmland property values increased. Miles explained that was because a lot of farmland in the county is no longer in production.

Douglas County Administrator Craig Weinaug said he hadn’t seen the newsletter or the early numbers. It was good that the county’s overall assessment increased, but he said the numbers were early and the county figures were just a piece of a picture that includes state assessments of public utilities and railroads. Those numbers wouldn’t be available until July and have declined steeply in the past with no advanced warning, he said.

His early guess from the March 31 figures was that when all shook out the final assessed valuation increase would equal inflation, Weinaug said.

Baldwin City chief financial officer Brad Smith had more reason to be pleased with the early figures, which showed the city’s assessed valuation increasing 3.3 percent from $28.5 million to $29.4 million. Baldwin City still hasn’t climbed back to its pre-recession total assessment of just more than $31 million. In recent years, the city either has seen assessments decline or hold steady.

“It’s not bad compared to what we’ve seen,” Smith said. “We’ll get a better number in June, but it’s good to see a positive number.”