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Equalization staff describe reassessment plan, fix legacy tax-exempt parcel errors
Summary
Matt of the county equalization department told the commission House Bill 1176 required real-estate assessment notices this year; staff built a temporary program to print and mail notices, corrected legacy AS/400 exemption flags on several dozen parcels, and outlined a six-year reassessment rotation starting with District 1.
Matt, speaking for the county’s equalization work, told commissioners that House Bill 1176 required the county to send real-estate assessment notices for the first time this year. He said problems with the current tax software vendor forced staff to write a temporary, county-coded program to generate and mail notices and that a QR code and web link were included to direct residents to common questions.
Matt said staff discovered several dozen parcels still marked tax-exempt because a flag carried over from an older AS/400 tax system was never cleared after the parcels moved from government or other absolute tax-exempt ownership into private ownership. He said finance staff corrected those entries for 2024 and the county will monitor them going forward.
On reassessments, Matt said he has drafted a reassessment map that splits the county workload into roughly six districts and follows guidance from the International Association of Assessing Officers recommending no more than a six-year rotation. He said the county will begin with District 1 and that assessors will perform door-to-door checks for parcels not visited in about four years; occupants have the option to decline interior inspections.
Matt also said the county will issue primary-residence credit notifications (a state-administered program) by email where permitted, to save printing and postage costs. He announced the County Board of Equalization will meet on June 1 to open appeals and that staff will prepare the assessment book and a preliminary meeting agenda; appeals heard at that meeting will be acted on at a subsequent meeting two weeks later.
The presentation included a brief discussion about how the state $1,600 credit and the 3% revenue cap interact with assessed values; staff emphasized the cap limits taxing jurisdictions’ revenue growth (plus new growth) but individual property tax bills may rise more if an owner’s assessed value increases substantially.
The commission did not take a formal vote during the report; staff asked commissioners to review the reassessment materials and the template letter that will go to residents in District 1.
