Lee property tax values jump nearly 40 percent

When Lee County Property Appraiser Ken Wilkinson released his estimates on property values for tax purposes on June 1, he guessed county values for taxing purposes had risen by 37.8 percent.

He was wrong. It was more.

Lee County will actually collect property taxes on nearly 39.7 percent more value than in 2005. The increase would mean a property tax revenue hike of $156.9 million if the tax rate remains the same. Property taxes collected by the county would jump from $395.5 million to more than $552 million.

The total value of real estate in the county rose by just more than 43 percent in the last 12 months. Theoretically, buying all the property in Lee County would now cost more than $118 billion.

“Overall, the county’s up more than 43 percent,” Wilkinson said. “Obviously, that’s a historic record.”

It’s a huge increase even in a county known for huge increases. Last year the tax base jumped by 28 percent. The year before it was just more than 16 percent. Every year since 2000 the assessed value has jumped by 14 percent or more. Property values are climbing all over the county. The 24.85 percent increase the barrier island city of Sanibel saw was the lowest of any city. Fort Myers Beach saw a 26.26 percent increase. In Bonita Springs the increase was 35.55 percent. In Fort Myers it was 36.3 percent.

The largest city in the county was the value growth leader. The city of Cape Coral showed a whopping 56.43 percent increase.

Wilkinson also tracks values by fire district. Each district levees its own property tax.

The growth hotbed continues to be Lehigh Acres. On the heels of last year’s remarkable 98 percent increase the values climbed by 88 percent this year. Second on the growth list was the Alva fire district, another east Lee community discovered by growth in the past few years. Residents there saw an increase of 43.78 percent.

South Lee districts saw big growth as well, though not at that rate. San Carlos Park saw an increase of 41.36 percent. The increase in Estero was 33.99 percent.

The various districts collect taxes based on the assessed values. Tony Majul, the county budget director, said no proposed tax rate has been made yet.

There will be none made or proposed until around Aug. 1, Majul said. “In the meantime we evaluate this and some other information. We haven’t done the rollback.”

The rollback rate is the property tax rate that would produce the same amount of cash next year that was produced last year.

“We’re developing a budget around the rollback rate,” Bonita City Manager Gary Price said. “It’s what I have traditionally used.”

Bonita City Council members have said they want to cut taxes.

“I suspect the rollback rate is substantially less than our current rate,” Price said. “We’ll just have to see where they want to go from there.”