A taxpayer representative and Clay County appraisal staff sparred over how to split land and improvement value for “Bear Family Farms,” a house and about 38 acres where most acreage is farmed.

The dispute centers on whether the majority of the 38 acres should be taxed at agricultural value and how much of the overall assessment should be assigned to the residence and auxiliary buildings. "It's just try we're trying to figure out what the split is, because almost all of the land...they're farming all the land," the taxpayer representative said.

Stuart Stricker of the Clay County assessor's office told the panel he inspected the site last year and documented a secondary, freestanding building that had been finished in part as living space. "The house valuation alone is 1,005,000," Stricker said, and he described adding a 1‑acre home site at a different value from the 37 acres taxed at agricultural rates. Stricker said the county's current allocation was one acre at residential value (about $68,000) and the remaining 37 acres valued by soil productivity and ag formula (about $17,000 per acre), producing a combined land value of roughly $86,000 for the full 38 acres.

The taxpayer representative said comparable sales they provided tended to be smaller in finished living area than the subject and argued those sales did not fully reflect the parcel's acreage or the owner's view that most of the acreage should be treated as agricultural. He said his packet included sale comparables with similar acreage that sold for amounts the representative used to argue for a different split.

County staff said the informal hearing process for the parcel had been closed because the assessor's office did not receive an agent authorization to represent the owner in the informal process. The assessor's inspection documentation and photos of the secondary building factored into the county's improvement valuation, Stricker said.

The board paused the hearing to confer and told the parties it would return with a decision in the next few days.

The hearing record shows the parties disagreed on (1) whether most of the 38 acres should qualify for agricultural valuation, (2) the living‑area comparability of the sale comps, and (3) how to treat the secondary building that contains some finished space. County staff said the county used a standard one‑acre home site deduction on rural ag parcels unless site specifics justified a larger yard allocation.