Montezuma County Assessor’s Office New Property Valuations

This article was submitted to The Journal and published on September 17. This is the original content, before edits made by The Journal staff for length.

The Montezuma County Assessor’s Office has recently seen an increase in property owners with concerns about their new property valuations. If you’re wondering why your property’s assessed value went up since 2023, you’re not alone—and we want to help explain what’s behind these changes.

Here are a few key points to keep in mind:

Property values are reassessed by the County Assessor’s office every two years.

The current valuations, completed in 2025, will affect your 2025 property taxes, which are due in 2026. These valuations are based on actual sales of comparable properties during the data collection period of January 1, 2023, through June 30, 2024, as required by state law.  A “Notice of Valuation” is mailed to property owners by May 1^st each year.  This valuation is the basis for your tax bill.

In 2023 and 2024, the Colorado Legislature provided a $55,000 reduction in actual value for residential properties and a $30,000 reduction for commercial improvements. These reductions helped lower property taxes for those two years, but are not in effect for 2025, which may make the current year’s taxes seem much higher even if your property value didn’t change significantly.

The adjusted actual value is then multiplied by the assessment rate, which gives your assessed value.  The assessment rate is set by Colorado law, and beginning in 2025, residential property will have two assessment rates- one for local government assessed values (6.25%) and one for school district assessed values (7.05%). 

Here’s where it gets even more complicated.  Each year, local taxing authorities (Montezuma County General Fund, Road & Bridge, fire protection districts, cemeteries, municipalities, school districts, conservation districts, the hospital, and more) set their mill levies based on their budgetary needs and the cap approved by voters.  In Montezuma County, there are 38 different taxing authorities.  Your assessed value is multiplied by the mill levies applicable to your specific location, and the totals are added to equal your final property tax bill.

Additionally, local voters approved increases to school district mill levies in 2024. In 2023, the Dolores RE-4 levy was 33.961, but in 2024, the levy is 49.524 mills. Since the school district assessed value of your home is higher, and the majority of your property tax goes to your local school district, this contributes to higher tax bills.

For example:

In 2024, one specific Montezuma County home had an actual value of $240,017.  With the $55,000 reduction, the adjusted actual value became $185,017, and based on the location of that home, taxes for 2024 were $757.

For 2025, without the reduction and with the increased school district mill levy, the estimated taxes will be $1,262, even though the property’s base value may not have changed significantly.

We encourage all property owners in Montezuma County to really study their property tax bills.  Find out where your taxes are going and where they are not.  The Montezuma County Treasurer collects all property taxes but then distributes the funds to all the taxing authorities.  As mentioned previously, the majority of your taxes go to your local school district.  Montezuma County receives a total of 13.01173 mills between funds designated as “Montezuma Road & Bridge” (for use only by the Road & Bridge department), “Montezuma County Social Services” (for use only by Social Services), and “Montezuma County General Fund” (used to fund all other County departments, including the Sheriff’s Office). Each year during the budgeting process, the Board of County Commissioners decides how many mills out of the total to allocate to each of these funds without exceeding the total approved by voters.  Funds designated as “Montezuma County Law Enforcement Authority” (1.45 mills) are collected only from property owners in unincorporated Montezuma County and may only be used to help fund the Sheriff’s Office. 

Want to learn more?

Montezuma County Assessor Leslie Bugg is planning a series of informational classes later this fall to explain the new tax rates in detail and show how your taxes are distributed. Please watch for more announcements as we get closer to those dates.