Email, Joe Wisnoski, associate, Moak, Casey & Associates, Dec. 14, 2016
3:01 p.m.
The computations using either the median or the average (mean) seem to be reasonably accurate. I assume there are a few more decimals on the recapture percentage than just exactly 38% in order to get the amounts shown. Looks to me like the only real issue is in the meaning of “average” versus “median”. Either one could be appropriate.
Median says that half the taxpayers have less value and half the taxpayers have more.
Average essentially would add all the taxable value of all the taxpayers, then divide that sum by the number of taxpayers. Because there are likely a significant number of very expensive homes that have much higher taxable values than the median, it does not surprise me that the average is a higher number than median.
So I guess I would not have a problem with the statement “the average amount paid in recapture is between $1,300 and $1,400” being considered true. It would also be true that probably more than 50% of taxpayers likely paid less than that amount, as well as something less than 50% paid more than that amount. The average doesn’t really describe much about the distribution of payment amounts, so you don’t really know how many taxpayers are clustered close to that amount, and how many are really far away (high or low) compared to the average. Similarly, the median doesn’t really say a whole lot more about the distribution – you only know you are right in the middle, but you don’t know how many of the real taxpayers out there are actually close to that one point in the middle.
I think there is some old statistician’s joke about the person with his head in the oven and feet in ice water saying that on average, he felt just fine.
___________________________________
Joe Wisnoski, Associate
Moak, Casey & Associates
From: Selby, Gardner (CMG-Austin)
Sent: Wednesday, December 14, 2016 2:34 PM
To: Joe Wisnoski
Subject: Sharing here; thoughts?
Jacob Barrett of the Austin district tells us it got to the average homeowner’s share of the budgeted recapture payment starting from its average taxable value of a home in the district of $328,844 on which such an owner expected to pay $3,548 in school maintenance and operations property taxes at the M&O tax rate of $1.079 per $100 valuation. Finally, Barrett said, multiplying the 38 percent established earlier by that $3,548 delivers the portion of taxes on an average-value residence that goes to recapture of $1,355.
We asked the district if it’s also analyzed how much a typical homeowner pays by running its equation against the median-value home. Barrett said not.
Separately, we reached Marya Crigler, chief appraiser of the Travis Central Appraisal District, who initially provided us a slightly lower average home value for the Austin district ($328,253 as of Aug. 8, 2016).
Crigler said too that when the appraisal district analyzes the impact of taxes on typical homeowners, it uses the median value home in its calculations because that number is exactly the half point of all home appraisals; the average, Crigler said by phone, can be skewed by any extremely high or low values.
Next, we took the median value of homes in the Austin district as of Aug. 8, 2016--$261,487--and ran that through the district’s equation for determining how much an average homeowner pays toward recapture. Result: The median-value homeowner will be expected to pay $2,821 in M&O school taxes, of which $1,078 would be the homeowner’s share of the district’s recapture payment.
Thoughts?
Thanks,
g.
W. Gardner Selby
Reporter / News
Austin American-Statesman
PolitiFact Texas