Fond du Lac council hears revaluation briefing as assessors prepare open-book meetings

The Fond du Lac City Council on April 23 heard a detailed presentation on a citywide property revaluation and the upcoming open-book and board of review process, and council members approved three routine resolutions and a land sale during the consent and action portions of the meeting.

City Manager Mr. Moore led the presentation and said the revaluation’s central purpose is accuracy and uniformity: “the real point of a revaluation is to make sure that assessed values reflect market values,” he told council members. He and city assessors described mailing 15,000 assessment notices this week and said residents should expect notice-driven questions starting as early as the coming Friday.

The revaluation matters because it changes assessed values used to allocate each property owner’s share of the tax levy while remaining revenue neutral for taxing jurisdictions. Moore showed a preliminary, revenue-neutral example in which a citywide tax rate would fall from about 0.024 to roughly 0.016 using the new assessed base, even though individual homeowners will see large percentage changes in their own assessed values.

Les, identified in the meeting as the city assessor, explained the numbers behind the update and the outreach plan. He said the city’s average assessed value increase is about 54% overall, with residential properties up roughly 67% on average and…