The Tax Lab
Three experiments on the city's tax math. Pick one, change the inputs, and see what happens to the city rate and the average home.
Every experiment starts from the adopted payable-2026 numbers. The local levy of $2,179,043 divided by $9,197,371 of local tax capacity gives today's 23.69% city rate. Open any of the three on its own page, or switch between them below.
How many acres of new development it takes to move the city rate or the average home’s tax.
What a bigger levy does to the city rate and the average home’s bill.
Set a smaller levy and choose the cuts in the adopted 2026 budget yourself.
Inputs
10 means a tax base 10% bigger than today’s.
The average existing Nowthen residential homestead, from the official DOR homestead aggregate (Residential Homestead NTC ÷ Residential Homestead Count), spread over an assumed five-acre lot.
Property class: 1a residential homesteadCalculated
Details you can change
Land needed under these assumptions
960.4 acresof average existing five-acre home
To grow the local tax base by 10%, at $958 of locally retained tax capacity per acre (the taxable base the rate is charged on, not the tax bill).Calculated
24 forties ≈ 6 quarter sections ≈ 1.5 sections
One square = one forty = 40 acres. 16 forties = one section (640 acres). Abstract blocks, not a map of any actual parcel.
Equivalent average existing homes
≈ 192
960.4 acres on five-acre lots, for scale
Gross annual city revenue at today’s rate
$217,904
23.692% of retained tax capacity
City rate if the levy stayed constant
23.692% → 21.538%
≈ $103.14 a year less on the average existing home
These figures show tax-base math before any added service costs. New homes and businesses also bring road, policing, fire, administration, and capital costs, and this tool counts only the road costs you enter. The five-acre-lot figure shows scale. It is not a forecast of what land could or will develop.
How many acres would it take?
The same goal, compared across development types using each type's default taxable value. Open one to load it into the result above.