Citing significant increases, York County homeowners protest property valuations at county board meeting

Written by WILLIAM SWETT
Reprinted from York News-Times

YORK COUNTY

YORK — On Tuesday morning some homeowners appeared before the York County Board of Equalization to protest the York County Assessor’s recent valuation of their homes.

The board of equalization, which is composed of the members of the board of commissioners, but is considered a separate body, does not set valuations. That is done by the assessor. Rather, the board’s job is to “equalize” the valuations.

“We figure out whether a [landowner] is being fairly treated or not,” said York County Board Chairman Randy Obermier. The burden is on the landowner’s job to show they are being unfairly treated through the production of comparable homes and other evidence, which is then turned over to the assessor, who makes the recommendation, Obermier said.

Seven landowners from the McCool Junction and Henderson areas of York spoke at the meeting, describing drastic hikes in their property valuations, ranging from 50% to over 100% increases. There are other landowners, who did not appear at the meeting, but who are also protesting their property valuations.

James Ohrt, a resident of Henderson, said he was a “little shocked” when he opened up his property tax valuation and discovered it had gone up 99.4%.

He said he thought “there was room to go up,” but was not expecting it to go up that much.

York County Assessor Kurt Bulgrin said the county recently updated the software it uses to value properties. The new update to the software, developed by the Iowa-based company Vanguard Appraisals, included market adjustments for rural residences and also switched to a “cost-based” system, rather than a “sales-based” system.

Only one portion of the county was affected by the update, while the rest of the county continued to be valued using the older version of the software.

“There is nothing equal about that,” York County Commissioner Andy Bowman said. He called it “absolutely absurd” to assess the county in two different ways.

“We are being unfairly taxed,” said Steve Gerken, whose property, he said, had increased by 76%. While the board’s job is to consider property valuations, not taxes, according to Obermier, the practical effect of a higher valuation could be a higher tax burden unless levies are lowered.

Bowman and Ott suggested that the assessor’s office revert everyone back to the old software for at least this year until everyone can have their property valued by the new software at the same time.

The Nebraska Department of Revenue is going to do a statistical analysis of property values in York to determine if properties in York were properly “equalized” or fairly assessed, according to Bulgrin. If the statistical analysis suggests that some properties weren’t equalized, then the county board can appeal to the Tax Equalization Review Commission to adjust them.

The results from the statistical analysis should be available by the next county board meeting on July 9. At the same time, the software has also experienced some glitches, affecting the values of some parcels in York County, an issue that the assessor’s office said it was addressing and would not require affected landowners to protest.