The projections are in for a proposed bond referendum for a new grades 5-6 school.

A $100,000 home’s property tax would increase by about $50 per year (or $1,000 total) if voters approved a 20-year, $28.9 million capital bond this November. A $150,000 home’s property taxes would go up by about $74.

By the same token, if the referendum fails, a $100,000 home’s property tax would go down by $76 and a $150,000 by $114.

Austin Public School officials released property tax projections last week. While property taxes would rise, a $20 million bond referendum on Austin High School renovations is set to expire this year, and the savings on that bond would offset most of the tax change according to district officials.

“This has been a community decision,” said Dick Lees, vice-chairman of the board. “This is of course not just a school board decision. All avenues were examined … and this is what the outcome was.”

The $28.9 million, which would go towards a new intermediate school and renovations to Woodson Kindergarten Center, would be split up over 20 years, ending in 2032.

“What we’re looking at, it’s pretty much in line with what we talked about during the (community) task force,” said Mark Stotts, Austin’s finance and operations director.

Although residential property values widely vary in the district, the average Austin home is going for about a $90,000 sale price according to Jerry Wolesky, Associate Broker and Manager of Fawver Agency Realtors.

“Our (home) prices are certainly not what they were,” Wolesky said. “They’re down.”

That $90,000 home’s assessed property value is what will be taxed, although the assessed value shouldn’t differ greatly from the sales price according to Wolesky.

Spreading the cost

Calculating property taxes is no easy matter, as there are plenty of loopholes, exceptions, codes and values to consider. The best way to think about the total tax impact of the referendum is to divide the bond levy cost by the district’s tax capacity, or a calculation of everyone’s share of property taxes, according to Donna Welsh, Mower County Financial Director.

The district’s tax capacity is a bit more complicated. Each property has its own classification, which signifies its property tax rate. The total tax capacity would be calculated by multiplying the total market value of every piece of property within the district by its tax classification rate percentage.

Residential owners bear the bulk of the tax capacity, as there’s far more residential property in the district than any other kind. Of the district’s total adjusted taxable value last fiscal year — around $14.9 million — residential owners accounted for about $8.9 million in its tax capacity. Commercial space accounted for about $2.9 million, and agricultural property accounted for about $1.7 million.

District officials took the housing market into consideration when calculating these bond projections. The district’s bond structure is set up to account for modest growth in bond interest and property value rates, according to Stotts.

“We think we’re conservative,” Stotts said about the bond interest district officials used to calculate the projections. “I think we’re using about a half percentage point higher, not knowing what the market’s going to do.”

In addition, district officials set up a bond repayment plan that would keep the capital and debt levies, which would encompass the bond referendum, even for the next 20 years. That means taxes wouldn’t go up or down based on the bond referendum, though some debt levies would expire in 2026. Stotts said the bond repayments wrap around the existing debt and is a standard practice among school districts.