Real Estate Appraiser (Appraiser)

 The Property Appraiser is an independently elected official whose duties are prescribed by State. The Property Appraiser is dedicated to providing unsurpassed personalized and professional service.

The Appraiser cannot reduce property values when the market supports the current level of assessment, even if market trends indicated a lower value. The taxing authorities are authorized by State law to raise tax rates to get the same revenue they had the prior year without calling it a tax increase. The end result is the Property Appraiser does not have the authority to lower taxes and lowering the value assessed would not ensure lower taxes even if justified from the market.

The Appraiser's primary job is to prepare an annual tax roll (assessment roll) that complies with Constitutional and specific State mandated standards in order that it will be approved each year by the Department of Revenue.

This is a very serious matter because the rejection of a county’s tax rolls leads to many problems for the School Board, local governments, the taxpayers and the Property Appraiser.

To maintain an approvable tax roll, the Property Appraiser must estimate the current market value of all real and tangible property based upon data from real estate sales transactions and other current market data.

The tax roll is audited annually by the Department of Revenue to ensure compliance. The State is empowered to reject the Property Appraiser's roll if the values assessed by the Property Appraiser are not at the levels required by the Department of Revenue for any class of properties on the assessment roll.

The Department of Revenue will not approve the tax roll unless the level of assessment, overall and for each property class, is at least 90% of the just value required by the Constitution. This ratio is determined by comparing the assessed value to the actual selling price of all properties sold during the prior year. Since the valuation of all properties must reflect current market trends, values of all similar property types, even those that did not sell, must be adjusted to reflect current market trends.

The challenge for the Property Appraiser is to arrive at an accurate estimate of value on all properties, each year, which will comply with State standards for approval and with as little cost to the taxpayers as possible