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Morgan County board keeps homeowner's assessment at $72,800 after appeal
Summary
At a board of equalization hearing Jan. 15, a Morgan County property owner challenged a steep year-over-year jump in his home's assessed value; commissioners voted to leave the assessment unchanged at $72,800.
Robert Mack, a Morgan County homeowner, told the county's board of equalization on Jan. 15 that a recent notice showing a large increase in his home's assessed value would sharply raise his property tax bill and was hard to absorb on a fixed Social Security income.
Mack said he prepared a graph of his property's appraised value that showed steady increases from 2016 through 2021 and then a much larger jump for the 2025 assessment. "It takes up a third of my annual increase in Social Security just to pay these taxes," he told commissioners, arguing the year-over-year rise was too rapid for his household to bear.
County staff explained the office's mass-appraisal approach: assessors combine land-value and construction-cost data with recent neighborhood sales ("comps") and apply depreciation and square-footage adjustments. County staff and elected officials repeated that assessments must reflect market value and that lot sales in the area have been higher in recent years, pushing comparable values up.
Commissioners also discussed a state-mandated mechanism that can roll back a county's levy if aggregate residential assessments across a jurisdiction increase beyond a set threshold in a single year. Staff said that limit, commonly described during the hearing as a roughly 2% countywide threshold, can force an adjustment to the levy rate if countywide assessed values rise faster than that benchmark.
After hearing Mack and county appraisal staff, the board voted to leave the assessment at $72,800. There was no detailed roll-call vote recorded in the meeting transcript; the motion passed and the clerk recorded the outcome.
Why it matters: Many speakers at the hearing framed the issue as part of a broader, countywide rise in market values driven by recent sales. For individual homeowners on fixed incomes, a rapid assessment increase can mean an immediate and hard-to-plan tax increase even where the county argues the assessment remains below current market-sale levels.
What happens next: The board's resolution preserves the assessed value recorded for this parcel; any taxpayer seeking a different outcome must follow the county's appeals process or provide additional evidence for reconsideration.
