Kenai Peninsula Borough assessor outlines reinspection cycle, appeals decline and budget rise
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Summary
Borough Assessor Adena Wilcox told the assembly the assessing office is on a five-year reinspection cycle, that informal and formal appeals fell this year, and that the department seeks more funding mainly for notice printing, software maintenance and computer replacements.
Kenai Peninsula Borough Assessor Adena Wilcox told the borough assembly on May 20 that the assessing department will continue its five-year systematic reinspection cycle and is seeking a modest departmental budget increase largely driven by printing and technology costs.
Wilcox, the borough assessor, said the department employs 21 people and carries out property identification, classification and valuations each year under state statute and professional appraisal standards. She noted a 0.71 percent increase in the department’s budget request, with personnel costs up slightly and services higher mainly because of increased expense for printing notices, software maintenance and postage.
The department mailed 63,129 real-property assessment notices in February and 4,481 personal-property notices in March. Wilcox said the office logged 704 informal appeals after notices were mailed and received 37 formal appeals this year; of those 37, 26 remained to be heard by the borough Board of Equalization when she testified.
The nut of Wilcox’s presentation was process and compliance. She described the office’s method for residential valuation — a market-adjusted cost approach — and said the office follows state statute, International Association of Assessing Officers guidance and the Uniform Standards of Professional Appraisal Practice. She also reminded the assembly that a 2024 state law, SB 179, requires municipal appraisers to carry a state certification (level 3) or work under a certified level-3 appraiser; Wilcox said she is a level-4 appraiser and that most managers and many staff are certified or working toward certification.
Assembly members asked about the drop in appeals, the state audit process and the office’s access to sales data. Wilcox attributed fewer appeals to a mix of factors: social-media accounts that do not match official records, outreach by the mayor’s office, owners who recognize assessed values may still be below market, and a department staff that meets property owners for informal reviews. On audits, Wilcox said the state uses the same sales and ratio-study data the borough uses and only rarely performs a physical audit; she said the department’s last physical audit was in 2017 and that steps required then were completed.
Wilcox described the department’s canvassing and inspection plan for the coming year: Seward, Kenai, Soldotna, Kasiloff and Ridgeway areas will be reinspected (either in person or using pictometry imagery). She said total parcel count is about 67,070 and that the department processed 6,313 ownership changes last year. She also described mandatory and optional exemptions the office administers, including the $150,000 senior exemption and an additional optional $50,000 exemption that can be stacked when eligible.
The presentation closed with a reminder that appeals are a substantial portion of the year’s workflow and that BOE hearings were scheduled to begin the following day. Wilcox invited assembly questions and said staff vacancies will be filled as soon as possible.
Looking ahead, the assessor asked the assembly to note that capital requests in the budget include replacement computers and that services budgets reflect rising notice and postage costs.
