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West Allis authorizes legal challenge to state Department of Revenue over property valuation
Summary
The council authorized a resolution to appeal the Wisconsin Department of Revenue's estimated equalized values, directing city legal staff to pursue review and, if necessary, circuit court litigation to force recognition of the city's 2024 revaluation as a reset year.
The West Allis administration committee approved a resolution authorizing the city to seek review and appeal of the Wisconsin Department of Revenue’s determination of the city’s relative property value.
City staff described a 2024 citywide revaluation that produced a local assessed value of about $5.57 billion. The Department of Revenue, using its internal economic-factor analysis, reported a higher target equalized value — roughly $6.4 billion for 2024 — generating an assessment level of about 87.59 percent. Staff said the Department’s 2025 estimate would put equalized value near $6.6 billion, which would widen the shortfall and keep the city out of compliance with state assessment rules.
City staff warned that prolonged noncompliance can trigger a state-ordered supervised revaluation, an expensive process in which an outside contractor performs interior inspections across the city and the city is billed. Staff recalled a 2021 estimate for a supervised revaluation at about $4,000,000 and said current costs would likely be higher.
City attorney Cale said he was seeking council authorization to challenge the DOR’s approach in order to have the department recognize the city’s 2024 revaluation as a 100 percent reset year. “Normally, I don't broadcast litigation strategies, but I'm gonna make an exception today,” he said, and asked the council to preapprove steps to appeal once official notices are received. He argued the DOR's formula compounds small annual errors and that recognizing a reset year would stop the compounding error.
Following discussion in which council members asked about modeling and asked whether other municipalities face similar issues, the committee voted to adopt the resolution authorizing review and appeal and to allow city counsel to proceed toward circuit court if necessary.
Staff estimated the Department's difference for 2024 at roughly $800,000,000 and the 2025 shortfall at about $960,000,000; most of the difference was said to be on the residential side. The resolution authorizes the city to pursue administrative appeals and litigation as needed.
