Real estate tax bills were mailed out just over a week ago in Washington County, but before that, the Equalized Assessed Value and tax rates had to be figured out for the county, towns and townships by the County Clerk and Recorders Office. Clerk Nancy Heseman provided the Washington County Board with those figures at the meeting last week. The EAV is the result of applying the state equalization factor for the county to the assessed value of a parcel of property. For Washington County, it is 0.9575, according to the Director of the Illinois Department of Revenue. The property assessment equalization factor, often called the “multiplier”, is the method used to achieve uniform property assessments among counties, as required by law. The grand total EAV for the county is $286,188,355. For all farms is $65,081,715, while it is $115,967,628 for residential, $22,524,250 for commercial, $69,326,607 for industrial, $10,170,044 for railroad and $3,118,111 for mineral. Then, the EAV is multiplied by the tax rate to get the amount of a tax bill. Throughout the county, the tax rates were the same for each school, hospital, county highway, mental health, ambulance, co-op extension, health department and senior services. It varied for fire departments, township roads and bridges, bridge construction, building equipment, city, town, village and assessor, depending on which township, town, city or village you live in. The tax rate for those in the city limits of Nashville is 7.997390, which would be multiplied by the EAV, after exemptions. It is approximately 0.2 higher than last year. Extras in the city include the library. Those living in Nashville, but not the city limits have a tax rate of 7.951580. It is approximately 0.23 higher than last year, so the rates have gone up in many areas. Once the tax bills have been paid, the County can then distribute funds to the agencies, such as the schools, the hospital, etc.