Park County homeowners paid some of the biggest property tax bills in the state last year.

According to numbers crunched by Assessor Pat Meyer, the median bill of $2,604 ranked as the second-highest among Wyoming’s 23 counties and was at least $1,000 more than 15 counties. Meanwhile, Park County’s median household income of $71,130 ranks just 13th, Meyer said, arguing that the need for relief is clear.

After initially opposing the idea, Meyer became a key proponent of a new cap on yearly property tax hikes, though he favored a 5% limit versus the 4% chosen by the Legislature. Now, Meyer believes the next step should be to allow counties to roll back tax values to 2020 or 2021 levels, if they so choose.

The Legislature’s Joint Revenue Committee is set to discuss the concept in November, and “I’m going to be really involved,” he told commissioners earlier this month.

Meyer gave the example of a roughly $510,000 home, which would draw a $4,174 tax bill in 2024. Rolling values back to 2020 would have dropped the bill to $2,643, because the home in that example had a 2020 fair market value of just over $250,000 — or less than half of the most recent valuation; a rollback to 2021 levels, meanwhile, would put the bill at $3,124.

The rollback would mean less revenue for all of the entities that fund or partially fund their operations with mill levies — from the county and municipal governments to schools and colleges to fire and cemetery districts.

At their Aug. 6 meeting, where Meyer spoke, Park County commissioners formally set the mill levy for fiscal year 2024, which began July 1 and runs through June 30, 2025.

Most entities opted to impose the maximum amount of mills they’re allowed to take; this year, the Cody, Powell, Clark and Meeteetse cemetery districts are the only entities choosing to take less than their max, of three mills.

The county government is again receiving 12 mills, which will amount to just over $12 million in fiscal year 2024. According to Meyer’s calculations, the county would have received $10.4 million had the rollback to 2020 been in place or $10.6 million under 2021 values.

The assessed valuation in Park County has exceeded $1 billion the last two years, but Meyer doesn’t expect that to continue indefinitely.

The valuation was just over $700 million for 2020 and less than $700 million in the four years before that.

“Park County has paid for services on significantly less property tax income,” Meyer wrote in his presentation.