Chelan Taxpayers Meeting Happenings!
On Wednesday evening, the Chelan Taxpayers group held a public meeting. It was a first meeting and was something of an organizational event. Courtney Cox (http://chelantaxpayers.blogspot.com/) presided over the meeting that was held at Karyl Oules residence in south Chelan.
About 50 people attended the meeting. The meeting started with a report from the Assessor’s office that even if the appeal was sent in with the wrong form, as long something was filed by the deadline, that it would be considered for appeal. So far, the Assessor’s office has received notice of at 144 appeals, which is a near record number.
Gary Noyd spoke about the research he has done with the Department of Revenue and where the discretion of valuation of property occurs. The state does have guidelines and does audit the county results, according to Gary, but the assessor has discretion about the factors that are considered. The responsibility and discretionary authority to set parameters for the valuations belongs to the Assessor and equalization must result according to the law according to his research.
Several attendees told about obtaining the field assessor’s worksheets on their properties and the issues that they believe they have found with the comparables or approach in the worksheets. Some examples of properties were brought up and their valuations that made some pretty compelling stories of possible errors in valuation.
Signup sheets were passed around and groups were formed to work on the issues at two levels, the local level and state level. Those approaches, combined with encouraging and enabling success for the folks who have filed an appeal of what are believed by the group to be inaccurrate and inconsistent valuations, form a three pronged effort to correct the issues that the group sees with property taxes and valuations.
Discussions of what can be done at the local level included a possible recall of the Assessor and a hard look at the budgets of local taxing districts and how they can reduce their tax burden.
Two issues are to be considered by the “state level” effort. An effort to support legislation and revise property tax as addressed in the state constitution is the first issue. The second effort is to work through the legislators to support changes that can be made without constitutional amendments.
Courtney reports that $1000 was pledged after the meeting to supporting the efforts. The Wenatchee World has an article on the meeting and the Assessor’s office appeal load here.
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