To the editor:
The 2015 budget bill has a sweeping change for the state. The assessment process would be handled by the county.
There would not be a local assessor or local board of review. It would be replaced by an assessment administrator hired by the county. The assessments would be at a 100 percent level of assessment each year. This would mean revaluing every property annually.
The potential cost would be approximately four times greater than the present assessment costs. There are no extra funds available from the state, so the additional expense would have to come out of other services.
The following press release by the Wisconsin Association of Assessing Officers addresses this proposal.
The WAAO board of directors and officers unanimously oppose the current 2015 budget bill proposal to shift Wisconsin’s property assessment function from local municipalities to counties.
According to Russ Schwandt, president of the WAAO, “This proposal requires counties to provide a level of service costing $25 to $30 per parcel but only includes funding of $6 per parcel. Wisconsin counties are left holding an empty bag while Wisconsin municipalities receive an inferior level of service. Cutting through the rhetoric, it’s plain to see that this proposal only serves to eliminate a couple dozen Department of Revenue jobs from the Bureau of Equalization.”
The county assessment proposal would require counties to take over the property assessment function and perform annual revaluations to keep property values at 100 percent full of market value each year. As proposed, the sole source of funding is the county’s ability to charge each municipality in the county an amount that is 95 percent of their 2015 costs for municipal assessment service, which averages $6 per parcel statewide.
If counties actually try to annually revalue every property every year at such a low cost, the resulting product and appeal process will be vastly inferior compared to what already exists today.
All stakeholders in this process understand the cost to implement the proposal is about $25 to $30 per parcel. For proper implementation, counties will be required to fund the almost $25 per parcel difference by siphoning or scavenging funds from other county agencies.
Schwandt added, “I and my professional colleagues throughout the state understand the true cost of resources necessary to implement the county assessment proposal and know this proposal is woefully underfunded. This has every potential to be a financial disaster for Wisconsin counties.”
Mel Raatz,
R & R Assessing Services,
Oconto Falls
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