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Show I , found County Assessed Valuation Jumps to $23J BMIUosi Willi final figures now in liuml, Grund County's usst-s-sed valuation for the year 1975 is up a whopping $3 million, but it is not us high us earlier predictions might have indicated, indi-cated, according to Grund County Assessor Kenneth A. Heach. The bulk of the vuluation incrcuse came in values ussessed locally, usuully by Mr. Heach, but this year by the Stale Tax Commission, which had a crew of property viiluulion specialists here for several weeks in the fall. This was in line with the Slute Tax Commission's policy of doing, over u period of several years, property vuluation work in all counties to lead to a hoped-for equalization of tax values stute-wide. The properties ussessed by the State Tux Commission on an annuul basis, utilities, mines, oil production, etc., climbed only a miserable $200 thousand. Harlicr predictions by the Department, indicated that increases in that category might be as high as $3 million. All in all, Grand County's assessed valuation for the year is $23,524,244. Local values, assessed in the County Assessor's office, jumped from last year's total of $9.93 million to $13.03 million. Values assessed by the State Tax commission, climbed from $10.20 million to $10.48 million to make up the total of $23.5 million. Last year's total valuation was $20.13 million. Although the total valuation figure is considerably higher than last year's, it is not nearly as high as local taxing units had been led to believe earlier this year. Bill B. Meador, Grand County Superintendent of Schools, stated that the State Tax Commission had advised him earlier in the summer that he should figure his new school budget on property values of around $26 million. "We didn't trust that figure, and figured our budget instead on a total valuation figure of $24 million," Meador said, "and thought we were plenty safe." Now, the superintendent super-intendent explained, the actual ac-tual figure of $23.5 million is going to seriously reduce expected revenues this coming year, and will make operating under the budget which was adopted in June very difficult. "We are sure we can cut back to stay within our revenues, but it's not going to be easy." he said. "If we had used the figures originally recommended recommend-ed to us by the State Tax Commission, we'd really be in budget trouble," he said. Local valuation figures, as shown on Mr. Beach's annual report, show the following breakdown in Grand County: Under the Real Estate category. Residential properties proper-ties were listed at $1.09 million. Commercial and industrial in-dustrial property was listed at $809 thousand; agricultural properties listed at $142 thousand and $454 thousand was the figure used to cover those properties not classified under the first three. Buildings and structures showed $3.68 million in residential; $2.05 million in commercial and industrial and $24 thousand in agricultural. Personal property showed the following values: Motor vehicles. $1.07 million; merchandise mer-chandise and fixtures, $508 thousand; commercial and industrial machinery, $2.3 million; agricultural machinery, machin-ery, $53 thousand and other personal property, $563 thousand. thou-sand. Livestock, totally in the county was valued at $249,911 with range cattle making up the bulk of that figure at $192 thousand. Property in the state of Utah is, by law, supposed to be assessed at 20 per cent of fair market value. The state-wide equalization movement, which has the State Tax Commission doing the work of the County Assessor in a few counties each year, caught Grand County this year. The project will soon have been extended to all 29 counties, and the impact in most is considerably greater than it was in Grand. Actual tax costs to residents, however, should not be as great as might be indicated by the increases in local property valuations, since indications are that mill levies in the County might be lowered as much as ten mills for taxpayers owning property within Moab city limits (see accompanying story). |