OSHKOSH – This time it’s the business owners facing potential property tax increases.
One year after homeowners were hit with a spike in taxes, more than 2,000 Oshkosh commercial lots could be facing a similar fate, with a recent evaluation resulting in a 22% average increase of commercial property values.
Oshkosh’s interim City Assessor Dean Peters confirmed that 2,074 commercial properties received notices of their changed property values following last year’s revaluation gaffe.
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Why did Oshkosh conduct another property revaluation?
An outside firm assessed the city’s commercial properties at what the Department of Revenue determined to be only 85% of their full market value.
Prior to last year, Oshkosh last conducted a property evaluation in 2017, leading to the combined assessed value of residential properties jumping by 53%.
State law prohibits the use of old values following a revaluation, forcing homeowners to take on an inequitable share of the tax pie.
“Of course, there is always concern from a business standpoint in wanting Oshkosh to be competitive from a tax perspective, but the key here is this being a fair process and nothing tells me this recent revaluation isn’t fair and equitable,” Oshkosh Chamber CEO and president Rob Kleman told the Northwestern.
“We have not heard from our members yet and this doesn’t necessarily mean everyone’s taxes are going up. This is about the overall redistribution of tax assessment of all properties.”
According to Peters, most households didn’t receive notices of an assessment change considering the DOR found last year’s values to be compliant at 101% of the estimated full market value.
Only 947 residential properties received notices, with a nominal average increase of 0.8%.
“If you didn’t receive a notice, then your assessed value did not change this year,” Peters explained to the Northwestern.
“Our focus with the revaluation was on commercial properties because 85% wasn’t acceptable to the state.”
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How are property taxes calculated?
The increased property values don’t necessarily spell doom for business owners, with property taxes depending heavily on the mill rate set in the city’s upcoming budget.
Property taxes are determined by dividing an assessed property value by 1,000 and then multiplying that figure by the mill rate.
Last year, city council lowered the mill rate to $8.14 and dropped the overall tax levy by 1.17% to $47 million by moving $3.6 million from the general fund to soften the impact created by the soaring rise of property values.
It’s left to be seen what the mill rate will look like next year as Oshkosh hasn’t released future budget projects.
Oshkosh City Manager Rebecca Grill declined to comment on the upcoming budget.
But Peters said the increased commercial property values resulted in a projected $350 million being added to the city’s overall tax base.
“The mill rate could possibly decrease because there is more tax base to absorb the levy, but we want people to understand revaluations update for market conditions and do not directly impact tax levies,” Peters said.
“We certainly don’t know for sure that the tax rate will decrease because other factors are involved, but the basic concept is that revaluations do not cause increase in tax collection.”
How has the city tackled the property tax situation?
Oshkosh has been trying to address its overreliance on property taxes to fund government, having requested the Wisconsin Legislature to allow municipalities to levy a 0.5% sales tax in counties that currently don’t have one. Winnebago County is one of two counties in the state that have not levied such a sales tax.
Council also lobbied the state to fully fund the Municipal Services Payment so cities such as Oshkosh won’t be forced to subsidize services to state-owned facilities like UW-Oshkosh and the Oshkosh Correctional Institution.
Oshkosh is now slated to receive an additional $383,654 after the Wisconsin Legislature agreed to add $7 million to the MSP’s annual tally for 2026 and 2027 to increase state funding of the program from 37.6% to 51.8%.
Common council further passed a resolution that will see Oshkosh conduct property evaluations every five years to avoid a repeat of last year’s hike in combined residential property values.
What about the school district and county budgets?
The Oshkosh Area School District’s portion of the tax bill will likely go down after the district lowered the mill rate from $7.90 to $7.86 in its recent budget.
OASD increased its tax levy by 3.27% while the proposed Winnebago County budget will likely result in a raise in property taxes.
Contact Justin Marville at jmarville@gannett.com and follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @justinmarville.
This article originally appeared on Oshkosh Northwestern: Oshkosh commercial property values increase: Impact on taxes, budget?
