Because of his flood-damaged home and issues with relief funds, Iowa City resident and retiree John Fitzpatrick does not know how he can pay his property taxes.

When he asked the Johnson County Board of Supervisors for a taxabatement, he was denied. No property-tax abatement has been given in more than 10 years, and supervisors don’t plan on altering that anytime soon, according to officials.

Fitzpatrick said that after he contacted his district’s supervisor, he was advised to write a letter to the entire board presenting his case and finally asked to present his case in a meeting.

“My sense is that by asking me to appear they were able to publicly affirm their stance that there would be no consideration for abatement under any circumstances,” Fitzpatrick said.

Johnson County Supervisor Terrence Neuzil expressed his sympathy for the man’s “unique” and “unfortunate” circumstances but said the supervisors had a policy of not granting abatements, at the request of Johnson County schools and city officials.

“Iowa Code does give the board [of supervisors] the option to abate, but there has to be pretty significant reason,” said Johnson County Treasurer Tom Kriz. “[The supervisors] are making a decision that affects other budgets extremely.”

Kriz said around 80 percent of property taxes are given to either the city government or the public schools. Any abatement given would subtract directly from the city’s or school’s budget.

In Linn County, officials have begun granting abatements after 7,000 county residents became eligible because of flood-damaged property.

Residents in Linn County did not have to pay taxes during the time they were forced out of their residences. If a resident’s home was unlivable for the entire year, then they wouldn’t pay property taxes for that year.

However, Kriz thinks this may cause further issues in Linn County.

“Cedar Rapids has abated some taxes on some flood-related taxes; that has been money that [schools and cities] budgeted to collect,” he said. “Which means the taxing bodies aren’t going to get the money that they were expecting, which can result in cutbacks.”

Linn County Treasurer Michael Stevenson estimated that if all 7,000 eligible citizens applied for a property tax abatement, up to $7 million could be lost between the schools, cities and the county. So far, 600 residents have applied for an abatement.

Stevenson said the abatements will be covered by reserve capital from the schools and cities within Linn County, but Linn County officials are unsure how they will deal with deficits at the county level.

Although granting abatements may pose a problem for Johnson County’s financial situation, the fact remains that some residents in Johnson County are faced with financial difficulties without being granted tax relief.

Fitzpatrick said an additional problem was that his house’s worth was not reduced after the flood damaged it, effectively reducing its value.

“I could have managed if they would have allowed to tax the actual condition of the property,” he said.