![]() “Unfortunately, some assessors do not welcome greater access to public assessment data,” Dougall said. Wasatch and Summit counties are among those that did not provide data. But it’s a problem that shouldn’t have festered for so long.įortunately, thanks to some engaged, vocal citizens and a dose of technology, it won’t have to for much longer.The tool, which can be found at, includes map overlays showing the increase or decrease of homes in all but a few counties. When Dougall’s app launches, we may find out how many Utahns are impacted by the lack of oversight and equity when it comes to property taxes. “It could definitely be more widespread,” Dougall said, “and clearly we have heard complaints from other counties that have concerns.” While the auditor’s office focused only on Summit and Wasatch counties, we don’t really know what other counties might have similar issues. “The Tax Commission lacked the technical expertise and tools that, 30 or 40 years ago wasn’t possible,” Dougall said, “but today, for very little money and not much time, you can put up a statewide database to help proactively identify concerns and reach out to those counties and say, ‘We have issues here.’”ĭougall presented the new tool at a legislative committee meeting this week and plans to make it public soon. And residents who think their valuation was too high can easily compare their valuation to that of their neighbors. In the span of just three weeks, one of Dougall’s staffers was able to obtain property records from all 29 county assessors in the state and load the data into a program that creates a heat map, showing when the last time every parcel of property had last been assessed.Ĭompared to trying to digest a massive spreadsheet, the heat map makes it easy to see parcels or neighborhoods that have been overlooked. The skyrocketing property values in recent years made it difficult to keep pace.Īnd the thing is, it should never have been so difficult to resolve this - as Dougall’s staff proved. In response to the auditor’s letter, the Tax Commission said it was aware of the problem and had been working to address it. “There needs to be a cleaning house at the Tax Commission.” Taylor is more blunt: “The very entity that is supposed to be overseeing this was the problem,” she said. “What we’re trying to highlight is a culture that had swung too far over into holding the hands of the counties and counseling them and not enough holding them accountable for noncompliance,” Dougall told me.Īs the letter from Dougall’s office stated, “when clear standards of assessment uniformity are not enforced, it contributes to public mistrust of the property tax valuation process.” Her group went to the Tax Commission, the agency that is supposed to ensure counties are complying with the law, and weren’t satisfied, so they went to legislative leaders and the governor to try to get someone to make the county obey the law and equalize the values.Įarlier this month, Dougall issued a letter to the Tax Commission taking the agency to task for failing to enforce the law. ![]() According to data from the Federal Reserve, home prices in Wasatch County have increased by more than 220% since 2011. One property they identified hadn’t been audited since 2011, when the housing market was just recovering from the recession. “There was no rhyme or reason to who got assessed higher every year and who hadn’t been touched,” Taylor said. Property owned by county council members, school board members and other prominent residents, she said, were among those that hadn’t been re-assessed as required. Homes owned for decades by senior citizens in the older areas of Heber City were paying more than newer, larger homes that sat on three acres, she said. Her group collected a huge trove of property records to help demonstrate the discrepancy. Tracy Taylor, head of the Wasatch Taxpayers Association and a real estate agent, had been trying to draw attention to the problem for years.
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