By PETER HUSSMANN
Nearly 80 percent of those filing appeals to this year's state-ordered valuation increases on residential, commercial and ag land properties in Jasper County were successful, county assessor officials said today.
Jasper County Assessor John Deegan said the four-member county Board of Review concluded its work Monday on the 968 petitions filed after the Iowa Department of Revenue ordered that all residential properties in the county see a 6 percent valuation increase while all commercial properties be increased in value by 5 percent. Ag land values were increased by about 50 percent based on five-year crop production levels, though state officials mitigated potential tax implications by instituting a rollback on the ground.
Letters indicating the outcome of the individual appeals were mailed to property owners across the county today.
Deegan said the appeals of 761 property owners were upheld, at least to some degree, among all classes of property impacted by the state's equalization order. While the Board of Review was only allowed to reduce valuations by the percentage increases ordered by the state, in some instances full reductions were not given.
The Board of Review denied 207 appeals.
Deegan, who previously lost his appeal with the state over the equalization orders claiming they were not needed, said the Board of Review met over the course of five or six sessions and reviewed each appeal application. He said the board based its decisions after looking at whether evidence was presented in the appeal that showed the valuation increase placed the individual assessment above fair market value on the property.
The county assessor attributed the high number of appeals on an erroneous e-mail message that circulated widely in the county that said the state had ordered a tax increase for local property owners and that by filing an appeal, the individual property owner could have that tax increase relieved. An increase in the value of a property does not necessarily equate to a corresponding increase in the amount of property taxes paid. It could be more or it could be less, depending upon the decisions made by the local taxing jurisdictions.
Deegan broke out the appeals upheld and denied based on classes of property.
Ag Land
18 Petitions
Upheld: 0
Commercial
129 Petitions
Upheld: 97
Denied: 32
Rural Residential
241 Petitions
Upheld: 186
Denied: 55
Urban Residential
580 Petitions
Upheld: 478
Denied: 102
The total amount of valuation lost across all classes of properties due to the appeals of equalization orders amounted to $7.802 million, Deegan said. However, nearly $2.5 million of the total can be attributed to the appeal from the Iowa Speedway on its state-ordered 5 percent commercial property valuation increase. Total commercial value lost across the county due to appeals amounted to $3.7 million, he said.
For both rural and urban residential properties, successful appeals amounted to the loss of approximately $4.1 million in valuation county wide.
Those denied their appeals are able to appeal the Board of Review's decision through the Iowa District Court system or to the state's Property Assessment Appeal Board.
There are approximately 28,000 individual properties across the county. The appeals to the equalization orders amounted to approximately 4 percent of the total.
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