Negotiators near compromise on property assessment cap, aim for August ballot
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Summary
House and Senate negotiators edged toward an agreement on a proposed constitutional restriction (referred to as "1616") that would limit increases in property assessment values; the House proposed a 10% fixed cap while the Senate pressed for a 9% baseline, with agricultural land included and details about exceptions and transferability still being finalized.
Lawmaker (S1) and Lawmaker (S2) negotiated a compromise over proposed constitutional language referred to in the discussion as "1616," seeking a limit on annual increases to property assessment values ahead of a planned August ballot. The House side proposed replacing a rolling-average approach with a fixed 10% cap, while the Senate side favored a 9% baseline and language modeled on the existing 1616 phrasing.
The talks centered on scope and technical detail: which property classes would be covered, whether agricultural land would be included, how transferability of the limited assessed value would work after title transfers, and how normal repair and maintenance would be treated. Staff member (S3) read the draft exceptions, noting they would exclude new construction or improvements, class/subclass changes, properties first listed for taxation (or previously omitted), error corrections, and changes to legal descriptions. S3 also said the legislature would retain authority to define ‘‘new construction’’ in statute.
S1 presented the House counteroffer: "What I'm proposing in the in our offer would be a 10% rate cap." The proposal described no rollback and no lookback to 2022; S1 said the cap would apply to the same classes that the House had included for residential, commercial and agricultural real property, plus related personal property classes.
S2 pushed back on scope and emphasized how the cap would be applied to assessment values, not to appraisal procedures: "I wanna be clear on that, not anything else. We don't wanna confuse that we're we're not impacting the appraisals, we're not changing the appraisal process, we're just dealing with the assessment value." S2 also described a preference for statutory language similar to 1616 that would set a maximum (for example 9%) but allow the legislature to provide for a lower percentage by law.
Participants discussed a practical concern about triggering full revaluations after improvements. S2 cited examples from other states proposing proportional adjustments to limit increases tied to the portion of a property actually improved; S1 said that idea had appeared as a floor amendment previously but warned that constitutional wording is fraught and the group must ensure statutory authority exists to implement any proportional approach.
No formal floor motion or vote was recorded in the transcript. Toward the end of the call S1 said the House side was prepared to accept the offer if no further questions, and negotiators agreed to continue ironing out outstanding text. The parties scheduled follow-up work in the tax committee, which was set to convene at 10:30 to continue negotiations.
