Washington County has been issued a final property assessment equalization factor of 0.9823, according to Brian Hamer, Director of the Illinois Department of Revenue.  It is the same as the tentative property assessment equalization factor that was announced in early June.  The property assessment equalization factor, often called the “multiplier”, is the method used to achieve uniform property assessments among counties, as required by law.  This equalization is particularly important because some of the state’s 6,600 local taxing districts overlap into two or more counties, such as school districts, junior college districts and fire protection districts.  If there was no equalization among counties, substantial inequities among taxpayers with comparable properties would result.  State law requires property in Illinois to be assessed at one-third of its market value.  Farm property is assessed differently, with farm home sites and dwellings subject to regular assessing and equalization procedures, but with farmland and farm buildings assessed according to standards based on productivity.  The equalization factor is determined annually for each county by comparing the sales price of individual properties sold over the past three years to the assessed value placed on those properties by the county supervisor of assessments/county assessor.  The average level of assessment is greater than one-third of market value, so the equalization factor is less than one.  Assessments in Washington County are at 33.93 percent of market value, based on sales of properties in 2010, 2011, and 2012.  The equalization factor currently being assigned is for 2013 taxes, payable in 2014.  Last year’s equalization factor for the county was 0.9740.