Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
By JAN TUCKER
Ontonagon — Ontonagon County is the place to get the “most bang for the buck” in Michigan, according to study by Smart Asset, a financial technology company.
In addition to property taxes, the study analyzed the quality of local schools and the local crime rate of every county to determine where people were seeing the most value.
On a scale of 1 to 10, Ontonagon schools ranked 10. Officials at Smart Asset calculated the average mathematics and reading language arts proficiencies for all districts in the country and within each state. The schools were ranked from 1 to 10. Houghton and Clinton also received 10s.
The study then calculated violent and property crimes per 100,000 residents. Ontonagon had 619, with just Dickinson and Lenawee having fewer.
On the property tax level, the study aimed at finding the area where people are getting the most for their property tax dollars with school rankings, crime rates and property taxes. The property tax rate for Ontonagon County is 1.44 percent. While a few counties had lower rates, those counties had higher crime rates.
Using the school and crime numbers, the study calculated a community score — the ratio of the school rank to the combined crime rate per 100,000. It then used the number of households, median home value and average property tax to calculate a per capita property tax collected for each county.
The Ontonagon County score was 93.06, beating the second best county, Dickinson, which recorded a 90.57. The rest of the top 10 counties were in the 70s and 80s in ranking.
Ontonagon Village Manager Joe Erickson said he was pleased with the study. “That’s pretty nice. Perhaps the rating can be used to attract more people to the area. They will get the most bang for the buck. It’s a great place to live and ranks well with areas across the country,” he added.
