Crook County said this year's property tax statements would be mailed to owners by October 25, 2026, so yours may already be in your mailbox. If you've been comparing Prineville with Redmond or Bend, you may also have heard about the change coming next year. The property tax break on Meta's Prineville campus is set to end in 2027. So does a campus with about $2 billion invested joining the tax roll mean a smaller bill for everyone else?
For most of the bill, the answer is no. Oregon's tax system sends the new money to local governments, not back to homeowners. The part of a household bill that can shift is smaller and easy to miss. And the city's real data center income has been arriving another way for more than a decade.
A Campus That Has Paid No Local Property Tax
Meta started building in Prineville in 2010. The Source Weekly reported in July 2026 that the campus now has 11 buildings covering 4.6 million square feet, with about $2 billion invested. Apple also runs a large campus in Prineville but shares far less about it.
According to the same Source story, the companies "haven't paid anything in local property taxes." Citing a Crook County Assessor's Office report, it put the data center value exempted this year at more than $130 million across city, county, school district and other taxes. The Source also reported that Facebook's first tax break deal expires next year. County Assessor Jon Soliz said it is not yet clear how much each local jurisdiction will gain. City Manager Steve Forrester told a state committee that Prineville will roughly double its property tax revenue.
The exemptions came through Oregon's Long-Term Rural Enterprise Zone program. Business Oregon describes these exemptions as lasting 7 to 15 years. Starting in year six, the company pays a school-support fee set at 15 to 30 percent of the taxes it would otherwise owe. When the term ends, the property becomes subject to local property taxes.
"Doubling" sounds like a windfall that could spill over to homeowners. Whether it does depends on how Oregon builds a tax bill.
Why Most of Your Bill Doesn't Move
Oregon's property tax limits divide a bill into pieces that behave differently. The Oregon Department of Revenue explains that each taxing district has one permanent rate limit, set per $1,000 of assessed value. Once that rate is set, nothing the district or its residents do can change it.
The City of Prineville's adopted rate for 2025–26 is $3.0225 per $1,000 of assessed value. When a data center joins the tax roll, it pays that same rate on its own value. The city collects more money in total. A house assessed at the same value as last year is still taxed at $3.0225 per $1,000. The new taxpayer adds to the city's revenue without lowering anyone else's share.
The pieces of the bill that do respond to a bigger tax base work differently. Local option levies and bond levies are certified as dollar amounts, not as rates. DOR explains that the assessor turns those dollar amounts into rates by dividing each levy by the taxable assessed value in the district. If the same bond payment is split across a much larger base, each $1,000 of value carries less of it.
| Piece of the bill | How it's set | What happens when big new value joins the roll |
|---|---|---|
| Permanent rate | Fixed rate per $1,000, can't be changed by the district | Your rate stays the same and the district collects more |
| Local option levy | Dollar amount approved by voters, up to 5 years for operations or 10 for capital projects | The same dollars spread over more value can mean a lower rate |
| Bond levy | Dollar amount needed each year for voter-approved bond principal and interest | The same dollars spread over more value can mean a lower rate |
Any relief for homeowners would show up in the bottom two rows, and only for districts whose boundaries include the data center property. How much depends on which levies are on a given parcel's statement and how big they are. Each Prineville-area tax code area carries its own mix.
The third row also comes with a limit. A bond levy runs only while the debt it repays is outstanding, and DOR notes that bond proceeds can only be spent on the purpose voters approved. A larger tax base can make a future bond cheaper per $1,000. It doesn't create bonds that don't already exist.
One more layer applies. Oregon's constitution caps the taxes on each property account in two categories, education and general government. When a bill goes over a cap, the taxes are "compressed," and local option taxes are reduced first. For some properties, that means part of the levy picture is already being trimmed before any data center value enters the math.
Where the Data Center Money Has Actually Been Coming From
While Meta and Apple paid no local property tax, the city was not going without. As data center electricity use grew, so did the fees utilities pay the city for access to its streets. The Source Weekly reported that this fee revenue rose from about $430,000 in 2011 to nearly $11 million. Officials put that at nearly three times the city's annual property tax revenue. A June 2026 summary from Oregon's Data Center Advisory Committee records Forrester describing about $10 to $12 million a year in electrical franchise fees. Before the data centers, the figure was about $30,000 a month.
Steve Uffelman, a longtime councilor who has been filling in as mayor, told The Source:
"We are more financially stable now than we have ever been because of the revenue generated by the data center."
Apple's agreements add fees of their own. A City of Prineville resolution notes that Apple's April 2012 agreement included a $150,000 annual project fee, and a 2016 agreement added another. From 2016 through 2027, the first $150,000 of combined annual fees is split equally between the county and the city. Fees above that amount, along with fees received after 2027 under the 2016 agreement, are split 80 percent to the county and 20 percent to the city. That makes 2027 a turning point in this agreement too.
Some of the benefit also took the form of infrastructure. Forrester described road, water, wastewater and fire improvements negotiated through local agreements, including aquifer storage and recharge. The Source reported that the city's underground water storage system was funded by Meta and Apple, holds about a year's worth of supply, and is meant to ease data center demand on hot summer days.
Put together, the data centers have been supporting city finances for years through franchise fees and infrastructure, not property tax. The 2027 change adds property tax as another revenue stream for local governments.
The School Share Follows a Different Path
The school portion of the exemption gets the most attention, and it works differently. The Bend Bulletin, reporting on research from Good Jobs First, said the Crook County School District's reported abatement loss rose from $10 million in 2019 to $29 million in 2024. The same Bulletin report noted that Oregon equalizes school funding through the state. Abatements in one county change the statewide funding mix rather than simply reducing that county's school budget. The Source made the same point, describing the link between the district's budget and the tax losses as "only a peripheral" one. When the exemption ends, the school share of new taxes flows into that statewide system too.
The Next Deal Will Look Different
The 2027 expiration also comes as the state is rethinking these incentives. OPB reported on March 2, 2026 that a legislative budget subcommittee had approved a proposal to block new data center enterprise zone tax breaks until summer 2027. By July, The Source reported that the Legislature had put a one-year pause in place starting in early June, and that new applications surged ahead of the deadline.
Locally, The Source reported that Prineville leaders agree they likely won't negotiate a full property tax abatement the next time a data center proposal arrives. Uffelman said several developers were seriously considering the city. A city economic analysis found Prineville would need 755 acres of buildable industrial land, including three large industrial tracts, to accommodate development at that scale.
Water belongs in this picture as well. A March 2026 state-commissioned draft estimated that Meta's Prineville campus used about 70 million gallons of water in 2024. That is roughly what 420 Prineville households used in 2021. The Source added that limited water supply and declining aquifer levels in the Deschutes Basin have led regulators to clamp down on new municipal water.
Reading Your Own Statement With This in Mind
If you're looking at a Prineville home, or you already own one and just opened your statement, the levy lines tell you more than the total does.
- Find the permanent-rate lines for each district, such as the city, the county and the school district. Those rates don't change when new value joins the tax roll.
- Find any bond or local option lines. These are the only lines a bigger tax base can lower per $1,000, and only for districts that include the data center property.
- Check the assessed value on the statement against its real market value. DOR explains that a property is taxed on the lower of its maximum assessed value and its real market value, and that maximum assessed value generally can't grow more than 3 percent a year without changes to the property.
This is general information, not tax, legal or financial advice. For questions about a specific property, the Crook County Assessor's Office or a tax professional can confirm how these rules apply.
A Few Questions That Come Up
Does the data center exemption ending lower permanent tax rates? Under the rules DOR describes, no. Permanent rates are fixed per $1,000. Only dollar-amount levies, such as bonds and local options, get spread across a larger base, and which of those apply varies by tax code area. The assessor's office can say what is on a specific parcel.
Has the city been getting nothing from the data centers until now? No. Electrical franchise fee revenue grew to nearly $11 million, and Apple's agreements include annual project fees. The data centers also funded the underground water storage system.
Does the pause on new tax breaks affect Meta's existing deal? The reporting describes the one-year pause as applying to new data center exemptions. Meta's first deal is reported to expire on its own schedule in 2027.
If your new tax statement raised questions about what you're actually paying for in Prineville, or how a home there compares with one in Redmond, I'm happy to go through it with you, one line at a time. Marge Gatien | Let's Connect
