Sumner County commissioners press staff to retrieve property data after tax-freeze errors and boundary problems

Sumner County commissioners on Jan. 13 heard detailed public and commissioner accounts of errors tied to a recent property-tax system transition, and directed staff to determine whether the county can recover historical parcel data from a private vendor.

The discussion began after Commissioner Rogers described a case in which his father’s parcel — previously granted a tax freeze covering the dwelling and up to 5 acres — was merged with an adjacent 4.03-acre parcel, producing a combined 9.03-acre record and triggering a reassessment that produced a roughly $600 tax increase. An administrative hearing on the assessor’s decision is scheduled for Feb. 20, 2025, Rogers said.

County officials and residents told commissioners that a migration from a local ‘‘Patriot’’ property system to a state system left gaps in the county’s historical data. Rogers and resident Kevin Baker said the missing or copied data may have caused incorrect acreage and valuations to be used in prior freezes and assessments. Rogers said he asked the Comptroller of the Treasury and CTAS for information and that answers were incomplete.

"We can't make a good determination holistically because we can't currently find this data," Commissioner Klein said. "We need the contract and we need to know if they still have our data."

Why it matters: the county’s tax-freeze program protects dwellings and up to 5 acres from reappraisal-based increases; if parcels were merged in the system incorrectly, owners may have been charged or undercharged in prior years and the county may face budget impacts or need to issue reimbursements.

County property assessor Tim Hertz (referred to in the meeting as the assessor) told commissioners that the tax-freeze calculation is performed outside the software system and that values are used from reappraisals; he described a specific local error in which a merged parcel kept a total freeze despite acreage rising above five acres. Hertz said the assessor’s office corrected the process going forward and would not retroactively change prior freezes.

County staff agreed on a short list of follow-up tasks: the county law director will review the Patriot contract if finance can locate it; the assessor’s office will pull the spreadsheet of current tax-freeze parcels so commissioners can see acreages; and staff member Mr. Hurd will contact Patriot to determine whether the vendor still retains the county’s historical data and what it would cost to access it. Commissioners asked for a report and recommended options to return at the next meeting.

During discussion commissioners also said election-boundary maps supplied by the City of Portland appear to have led to at least one parcel being split between two commission districts for voting purposes, a separate problem Rogers raised while tracing his father’s property history.

Chairman Adams and others asked staff to focus first on ensuring today’s system is calculating values correctly, then pursue historical data recovery if necessary. Commissioners asked for the contract and vendor responses in time for the Feb. 2025 meeting.

"What matters is that we solve the problem, and we come back in a month and actually have a course of action or two," Commissioner Klein said.

The county made no formal vote on reimbursements or corrective payments during the meeting; the board set follow-up steps for staff and the law department to report back.