Deanna (board member) said she had been told that homeowners near a solar installation in Clark County saw an 86% increase in their property tax bills after the project was assessed.

Lisa (county assessor) told the board that parcels used for utility-scale solar are assessed by the project’s output and may be reclassified from farmland to commercial land if the portion of a parcel used for panels is not producing crops. "If that land is not producing a crop, that's not farmland. That's gonna be commercial land," Lisa said.

The reassessment discussion centered on a proposed Maggard solar field near Stratton that the assessor’s office counted as about 1,270 acres and roughly 200 megawatts. The office said it must compute a field-level value (assessed by megawatts) and then partition that total among roughly 25–27 parcels that contribute to the field. The assessor said farmland in the area is typically assessed at about $5,700 per acre and that commercial market valuations could reach about $10,000 per acre for land taken out of production.

Officials explained how partial-parcel leases are handled. If a solar developer only uses part of a parcel, the assessor can require a land survey or legal description and create a separate parcel for the area used by the solar infrastructure. "If they're not using an entire parcel, that's when we require a land survey," the assessor said. The portion dedicated to the solar field would be valued and billed as commercial; the remaining acreage, if still producing a crop, would remain classified as farmland.

Board members and staff stressed the timing of valuation. The assessor’s office said the tax classification is determined as of Jan. 1 each year: if a parcel is planted on Jan. 1 the assessor may keep it as farmland for that year; if no crops exist and construction is underway or the deed has changed hands, the office may assess it as commercial. The office also described its practice of sending duplicate tax bills: one to the solar company (when the company provides a billing address) and one to the landowner. The duplicate bill is intended so landowners can monitor payments and avoid unexpected delinquencies that could lead to tax sales.

Staff said multiple recorded documents—memorandums of lease and easements—are often filed over the life of a project, and those items can affect parcel boundaries when the company files final surveys or legal descriptions. The assessor noted a particular site at Sims that has had memorandums on file for years, and some parcels have been adjusted (one parcel had the north 300 feet carved out and assessed separately).

No formal action or vote was taken at the meeting. Board members asked staff to investigate further and to check filings in other counties to confirm why neighboring parcels might have shown large tax increases. The assessor recommended landowners start by contacting the assessor’s office in the county where the solar project was recorded to review how parcels were classified and billed.

Officials also noted that many questions hinge on lease versus deed changes: a memorandum of lease does not always change ownership, but a deed transfer would. The assessor said she was monitoring the Maggard-related parcels and that some memorandums had been recorded in late August; an application related to the project was expected to be filed this week.

Staff indicated they would return with more detail at a future meeting; no policy changes or votes were made at this session.