In some cases, county audits may be arranged so that the process of excluding non-general revenues as described in Steps II-A and III in the previous chapter will be extremely difficult. In such instances, a simplified method may be used to estimate property tax expenditures for duplicated and jointly financed services.

An example of this process is provided in Appendix II.

Step I - Identify Duplicated and Jointly Financed Services.

Step II - Determine total amount of County General Fund Expenditures as reported in county audit or budget.

Step III - Determine total amount of County General Property Taxes. Include general property taxes on real and personal property, vehicles, mobile homes, timber and heavy equipment. These are usually identified as “property taxes” in county budgets and financial statements. Do not include school taxes or bond taxes.

Step IV - Determine Property Tax Ratio by dividing General Fund Expenditures into Property Taxes, or written as a formula: County Property Tax Revenues/County General Fund Revenues = Property Tax Ratio.

Step V - Determine total expenditures for each duplicated and jointly financed service.

Step VI - Multiply property tax ratio times total expenditures for each duplicated and jointly financed service to obtain estimated property tax expenditures for each such service. Written as a formula:
Property Tax Ratio x Total Duplicated Service Expenditure = Property Tax Expenditure for Duplicated Service.

Step VII - Determine total property tax expenditures for all duplicated and jointly financed services. Multiply total expenditures times property tax ratio.

Step VIII - Total all property tax expenditures for duplicated and jointly financed services and divide the result by total county general property taxes to obtain the level of inequity for county residents living in your city.

Step IX - Apply this percentage to the existing county millage rate to obtain excess millage rate for county residents living in your city.