It’s that time of year again – property tax statements are arriving in the mail.
It can be challenging to understand exactly what your property taxes pay for across multiple local governments.
At Metro, we’ve tried to take the mystery out of the property taxes paid to your regional government. At www.oregonmetro.gov/property-tax-information, we spell out exactly what the property taxes you pay to Metro cover and how much you’re assessed for each of those items.
Metro assesses property taxes in two categories:
Operating funds: Some of Metro’s day-to-day operations are paid for by a permanent assessment of 9.66 cents per $1,000 of assessed value on property taxes. In addition, another 9.6 cents per $1,000 of assessed value are dedicated to the care and maintenance of the parks and natural areas that Metro owns for public benefit, thanks to voters’ approval of Measure 26-152 on last May’s ballot. This dedicated levy for parks and natural areas will appear on property tax statements for five years.
Capital projects: Since 1995, our region’s voters have approved four ballot measures that enabled Metro to buy and protect natural areas and to make improvements to the Oregon Zoo. Bonds were sold to provide the money to support these projects, and the investors in those bonds are repaid over time with revenues from increased property taxes. This year, property owners are assessed a total of 28 cents per $1,000 of assessed value to pay for these four voter-approved bond measures.