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City and county assessors report double‑digit assessment gains and explain Iowa rollback limits
Summary
Dubuque City and County assessors told the Board of Supervisors that 2025 revaluations raised assessed values across residential, agricultural and commercial classes, but Iowa’s rollback system and two‑tier limits will blunt most taxable growth for many properties.
Troy Patzner, Dubuque City Assessor, and Billy Solby, Dubuque County Assessor, told the Board of Supervisors at the county’s Jan. 30 FY27 budget work session that 2025 revaluations produced notable increases across property classes but state rollback rules will limit how much of those increases become taxable.
Patzner said the county will use valuations as of Jan. 1, 2025, reflecting sales and property changes during 2024. He summarized the revaluation process and the primary drivers of assessment changes: new construction, reappraisals following market sales, exemptions and legislative changes.
Solby provided the assessment numbers: “Dubuque City residential went up 9.39%,” and the county residential increase was “about 9.75%.” He said agricultural dwellings rose substantially (county ag dwellings roughly 11.43%) and that commercial and industrial values rose by an average of about 15.6% in the city and 21.6% in the rest of the county based on 2024 sales.
Both assessors explained how Iowa’s rollback mechanism reduces the taxable share of assessed value when assessments rise sharply. Solby gave an example showing a residential rollback dropping from ~47.43% to ~44.53% for 2025 valuations, meaning a house assessed at $243,000 might have roughly $108,000 counted as taxable value under the statewide rollback.
They also described the two‑tier assessment limitation that replaced the business property tax credit: the first $150,000 of commercial property receives the residential rollback treatment while value above $150,000 is taxed at a 90% rate. Patzner and Solby walked through a numerical example to show how the two tiers affect taxable value on a parcel assessed at $300,000.
The assessors noted that a state Senate study bill and recent legislative changes require auditors to report whether value changes stem from new construction or from revaluation. Solby said vendors and auditing systems only recently supported parcel‑level differentiation, so local offices worked with vendors to produce the required reports.
Why it matters: the revaluations increased assessed values significantly statewide and locally, but rollback factors and the two‑tier limit mean many property owners will not see taxable increases proportional to assessed value gains. Those mechanics — plus the state’s backfill phase‑out for earlier business credits — are central to the county’s FY27 revenue forecast.
