I just got my property valuation and tax notice for the house. What I found therein amounts to a mixed bag of good and bad news.

My land value went up somewhere in the vague neighborhood of 33.3333333333333333333333333333333333 percent. The value of the house itself went down by about 26 percent. This makes for a loss in value of the whole package of about 11.3 percent. Those of you who can still remember beginning algebra now have a story problem – what percentages do the land and the building comprise of the total? Please show your work!

The good news is that the property tax burden for this year is now lighter by nearly $400. The bad news is that my house value has dropped by quite a lot. There is a good side even to the bad news, though. It simply means that recently inflated property values are coming back in line with reality. I hope that the housing bubble is completely burst and things will now level off.

Perusing the taxing entities is interesting. More than half of my taxes go to the Jordan School District. The next biggest chunks go to the county and to the city. Much smaller chunks pay for the county library system, water infrastructure, mosquito abatement, a multi-county assessment, and a county assessment.