In a letter addressed to Wisconsin taxpayers, Secretary of Revenue Roger Erwin announced a proposal to modernize the administration of the property tax system in Wisconsin.
Erwin writes that distilling the 1,851 assessment districts in the State to 100 districts or less will benefit property tax payers with a streamlined, cost effective assessment procedure under county management.
The proposal to move the assessment of real and personal property from the town, village and city level to the county level will be presented to the legislature with hopeful passage during the Spring session of 2010.
The draft outlines a county assessor system that provides significant benefits to Wisconsin taxpayers such as, fair assessments, property taxes and aid distributions, the elimination of inconsistent levels of assessment across the state, and greater transparency in the assessment and appeals process.
The success of the new program assumes the implementation of uniform data collection, consistent annual appraisals, regular on-site property inspections, certifiable county appointed assessors, and an even distribution of costs of the program by the municipalities within each county.
According to Erwin’s letter, the DOR’s proposal is a starting point for discussion and can be changed. It plans to host town hall meetings throughout the State in the coming months for public discussion.
Erwin's letter also admits, “many of the ideas, concerns and alternatives that have been expressed by stakeholder groups across the State have not been included in the draft.”
“We’re disappointed in how this is shaping up,” laments Keith Munson, the president of National Appraisal Corporation in Milwaukee. “We were not consulted about the plans for county-wide assessment until the DOR presented the idea at last month's assessor's conference."
Munson compares the exclusion of assessor concerns about the DOR's proposal to the family scenario when discussing plans for a vacation: “Don’t ask the kids because all they want to do is go to Disney World.”
The proposed change to county wide assessment warrants a close look at the cost of any change verses the purported benefits.
Comments
Better hold onto your wallet! A county assessment system with annual revaluations like they are proposing will be VERY costly. One is left to wonder if the benefits outweigh the greatly increased cost? Will DOR issue a cost-benefit analysis to the public before they head down this path? Will county assessment guarantee fair assessments between individual properties (the real problem) or just in total?
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