Oconto Falls is in the process of its first citywide reassessment in seven years, and the city council got an update on progress at its Feb. 11 meeting.
The Wisconsin Department of Revenue tracks the assessment ratio, the assessed value of property divided by its market value, and requires municipalities to keep that difference at 90% or higher to ensure that they are properly assessing property.
Dana Remien, account coordinator for Accurate Assessors, told the council that Oconto Falls’ assessment ratio was 61%, due mainly skyrocketing values since the last market update was done in 2018.
Average property values rose an estimated 10% in 2019, 9.1% in 2020, 11% in 2021, 7.5% in 2022, 15% in 2023 and 8.7% in 2024, Remien said. She estimated this reassessment will show increases in the neighborhood of 40-45%.
“It is so important to educate your residents on how this works, what happens, what’s next, what their steps are, and what to expect,” Remien said.
The Accurate Assessors staff is currently conducting field work to review all properties in the city.
“Usually we only visit parcels that have physical changes to property, building permits, razing, anytime you tear something down, demo something, update something, build something, those are the properties that are visited,” Remien said. “In revaluation years, we visit every single property.”
Notices will be mailed out in early July with the new values, open book sessions are scheduled to start July 30, and the Board of Review plans to meet Sept. 4 to consider appeals, she said.
Most of the field work is being done by driving by properties, and letters will go out to parcel owners who have had building permits in the last year or had other obvious changes requesting an on-site visit, Remien said.
She encouraged property owners to attend the open book.
“Usually this is a really good time for an assessor just to give out a ton of education, especially when it comes to a revaluation and for markup,” Remien said. “This is when you can go through all of your information, be sure that all the data on your home is correct, anything you’ve done to your home.”
Remien emphasized that Accurate Assessors is new to Oconto Falls and is working with historical information provided by the previous assessor.
“I don’t know what’s correct until you tell me what’s not correct,” she said. “(Open book) is a great time to come in, tell me what we’ve got, if it’s right, if it’s wrong, perfect time.”
A typical open book meeting lasts about 15 minutes, and residents will be able to make an appointment online, although walk-ins will be accepted. Two days of open book are planned, because it’s the first time for the new assessor and because it’s expected the increases will be fairly large.
“The biggest question is what will the assessment do to my taxes,” Remien said.
Local governments work under state-imposed limits on how much they may increase the amount of property taxes they collect year to year, so the main impact will likely be a lower tax rate.
wbluhm@newmedia-wi.com
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