What is the Mill Levy?
The mill levy is the “tax rate” that is applied to the assessed value of a property. One mill is $1.00 per $1,000 dollars of assessed value. It consists of a local portion which is used to fund area services and a statewide portion which is used to fund public schools.
The Legislature and Governor reduced the statewide school mill levy from 35 mills in 1996 to 20 mills in 2003. The first $20,000 in appraised value of a home is exempt from the statewide school mill levy starting in 1997.
How a Mill Levy is created
- Assume the budget needs a total of $150,000,000 and that the total assessed valuation for the year is $2,000,000,000. The total budget is divided by the total assessed value in calculation of the mill levy
- Example: (Total Budget) $250,000,000 / $2,000,000,000 (Total Assessed Val) = 0.125 (Mill Levy)