New assessments create confusion, frustration

By Sioux City Journal

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Public confusion seems the one consistent theme with respect to new Sioux City property assessments issued this spring.

Significant new methods applied to assessment calibrations this year created wide, puzzling fluctuations, sometimes within the same neighborhoods and along the same streets. Surprise and frustration exists among owners of residential, commercial and rental properties.

?Many questions exist within the community about methods used to determine assessments.

For example, the city assessor's office used the last five years of comparable sales to set new values, as opposed to only the most recent year of sales. As Ken O'Dea, president of the Greater Sioux City Board of Realtors, correctly pointed out to Journal business editor Dave Dreeszen for a recent story, the oldest sales within the last five years predate the collapse of the U.S. housing market in 2008.

“I don't know how he can justify going back that far,” O'Dea said of the city assessor.

Also, a new formula for the assessment of rental properties under which annual income is taken into account strikes us as patently unfair. One owner of rental property, Michael Gregg, told Dreeszen the assessments doubled on a number of small, multi-family properties (which he described as aging and in need of maintenance) he owns.

Also, we are unclear why, according to the city assessor, most property owners will see an increase in the value of their land but a decrease in the value of improvements they have made.

Exacerbating the problems was a lack of communication and explanation by the city assessor's office to property owners about the changes it was making, the rationale for those changes and the impact the changes would have on assessments. Understandably, the public doesn't like to be surprised by taxes.

Several hundred property owners have filed appeals of their assessments so far; we expect to see the number rise before the deadline.

It's too late in the process to start over from the beginning on determining assessments for this year, but when it comes time to assess property in Sioux City again in two years we suggest the city assessor's office study making changes again with the goals of improved consistency and fairness. Whatever it decides, the assessor should communicate its plan in detailed fashion to property owners in advance and should be open-minded to alternative suggestions.

No revaluation of property will make everyone happy, but taking those steps should help reduce the overall level of shock when property owners open their envelopes.