School, county mill levies decrease

Pennington County homeowners have received their property tax bills, and many in Hill City and Keystone may have been pleasantly surprised that the increase was far less than it has been in the last few years.
Shannon Rittberger, director of the Pennington County Department of Equalization, said his office is not seeing the increases in property valuations that it had been over the last three to four years.
“Before that the real estate market went up 2-3 percent,” Rittberger said.
That trend was true in the Black Hills for as long as he could remember, possibly two decades.
“And then we did three years of 20 percent plus and it was unheard of,” Rittberger said.
It also frustrated and worried many property homeowners, especially those on a fixed income, whose income didn’t see a dramatic increase.
Rittbeger said his office is now seeing an 8 to 10 percent increase in home values and expects that when assessment notices get mailed out in March property owners will see that increase which he says is “about the same as what we saw last year.”
Assessment notices are mailed on or near March 1 of every year. The notice informs the property owner of the assessed value of the property, which represents the market value of the property as of the previous Nov. 1.
Property taxes are based on the budgets of various taxing entities, like the Hill City School District or Pennington County, as well as overall property valuations and the mill levy. Each taxing entity has limitations on how much its budget can go up. This is a cap set by state law of either 3 percent or the Consumer Price Index whichever is less.  If a taxing entity wants to ask for more than that it must request an opt out.
Because budgets are capped and assessments went up the county mill levy decreased from 3.681 to 3.649.
Entities can always ask for less than the maximum amount, which is unusual but exactly what the Hill City School District Board of Education chose to do this year.
Hill City School District superintendent Blake Gardner put together a video highlighting the district’s approach. In the video Gardner says the “state legislature sets a maximum mill levy that  school districts can tap.”
“School districts can levy up to that amount but not more,” he said.
Gardner said a typical  property tax bill is 56 percent school and 27 percent county, with the rest going to cities and or townships.
Gardner says the Hill City School District has been able to balance its budget by “scrutinizing every expenditure and using budget flexibility” without cutting teachers or programs.
With a balanced budget Gardner said the school board created a budget committee to look into “historical budgets and projecting into the future.”
Gardner said the committee found that the district  “did not need to take the maximum allowable levy this year. We left money on the table to help out our local tax payers that are so supportive and shoulder such a heavy burden.”
Gardner estimates a home assessed at $451,000 saw a  school district savings of $544.50 on this year’s tax bill. Gardner’s video shows the district’s mill levy was reduced from 6.918 for tax year 2023 to 5.246 for tax year 2024. Property taxes are paid one year in arrears.
The county sent out  52,580 tax notices, however there could be more than one parcel on a tax notice.
Gardner’s video can be found at hillcity.k12.sd.us/apps/news/article/2012072 .
Pennington County residents can learn more about home assessments by visiting pennco.org/equalization.