Gallatin County panel orders 12% cut to Town Pump land values after dispute over time-trend method

The Gallatin County tax appeal board directed a 12% reduction to the assessed land values for the parcels under appeal after a hearing in which Town Pump’s representatives argued the Department of Revenue used residential time trends to value commercial land.

The reduction followed testimony and competing analyses presented Wednesday by the taxpayers’ counsel, Wiley Barker of Crowley Fleck, and an economist, Jerome Patton, and by Department of Revenue staff modeler Tim Scaup. The appellants had asked the board to cut land valuations by about 20%.

Appellants’ case focused on how the department time-trended older land sales to reach values as of the Jan. 1, 2022 valuation date. Wiley Barker told the board that the department “used the wrong time trend to value these commercial properties” and that applying a commercial time trend would lower the valuations roughly 20% on average. Economist Jerome Patton, who said he helped develop time-trending methods while at the Department of Revenue and now consults for Tekton Consulting, testified he recalibrated the department’s land models using commercial sales and found materially lower appreciation for commercial land than the department’s residential-weighted trend.

“The department…