Property values higher in Hortonville

By John Faucher

The Hortonville Village Board approved its 2022 budget on Dec. 2.

The 2022 budget reflects an approximately $1.60 per $1,000 reduction in the mill rate, and an increase in assessed valuation for most village properties.

Hortonville completed a village wide revaluation in 2021.

Revaluation is a process used in assessing property values using current market value to replace old or inequitable assessment values. The goal of revaluation is to bring fair market ratios back to or near 100 percent.

Previously the village’s fair market ratio was at 86 percent.

Village Administrator Nathan Treadwell led the 2022 budget presentation for board members and the public at the Dec. 2 budget hearing.
“We were able to drop our mill rate down about $1.66 per $1,000 of assessed value,” said Treadwell.

“The total mill rate across the board is down about $3.87 per $1,000 of assessed value.”

However, he explained because of the revaluation, some residents will pay more taxes this year.

“Anyone whose reassessment was over 25.1 is going to be paying more taxes this year. Anyone under that is paying less tax this year,” said Treadwell.

The board approved a budget increase of $6,000 over the previous year, for a total 2022 budget of $1.67 million.

“We could have increased by 4.5% with zero, in a normal year that you’re not being reassessed, with a zero sum on the budget,” said Treadwell. “But because of the assessment we wanted to shrink it down so that we weren’t affecting as much as the reassessment is going to affect certain people.”

He said that net new construction in the village this past year was at 2.45% , down a bit over last year, but still ranking eighth overall in Outagamie County where the average is 1.9 percent.

In general, Treadwell said because it had been so long since the village did a revaluation, most home owner assessments increased for 2022.

“So basically, not many people stayed at the amounts they were at,” said Treadwell.

The last time the village’s assessed fair market ratios were at or above 100% was in 2016.