Borough's property-tax payers deserve more respect

April 30, 2006

SPECTRUM/Tom Kluberton

I hadn't looked closely at my Mat-Su Borough Property Tax assessments until I'd heard lots of stories about property values being doubled in the Northern Susitna Valley this year. Sure enough, the values on two pieces of my ground were doubled. They're not large pieces; the increase in my taxes was less upsetting than realizing the borough made such a huge percentage increase to so many properties in a single year.

I'm no Realtor, but I know prices didn't go up that much around here.

Then it occurred to me that the value of the two parcels had been assessed the same. One has road access, MEA power and telephone, while the other sits back almost 600 feet from the road and has no utilities. There's no way they'd have the same value. I decided to call the assessor. After four days, the assessor's office had still not returned the call.

I've always appreciated the way our mayor manages to make time to respond to my concerns, so I took it upon myself to be sure he was aware of this &#8220no assessment left un-doubled” kind of increase that'd been dealt to the Northern Valley taxpayers. The mayor must've been busy, as he just forwarded my concerns to the assessor. Oops.

About then the phone rang - indeed, it was the assessor returning my call with newfound inspiration. We had a good conversation; I felt the assessor was being honest, so I wrote back to the mayor letting him know what I'd learned:

The assessor acknowledges the Northern Valley is taking a beating. He attributes it to:

1) The need to "catch-up with valuations in the Northern Valley."

2) His division does not have enough resources to do its job properly.

Summing it up, it seems the assessor's office was behind on the requirement to assess properties yearly because it's short on resources. So, when they finally got around to it they did a sloppy job (not looking to see if a parcel has egress or utilities, picking comparable miles away instead of looking at that property next door that sold a couple years ago - just doubling the assessment and letting the resident scream). Again, because they haven't got enough resources to do the job right.

No wonder he was a week behind in returning phone calls!

Meanwhile, people up here are over the barrel to do the assessor's job for him, and drown the board of equalization in the process; or bear a beyond-reason tax bill that may cost them their ability to live in their home. I'm amazed at how many horror stories I'm hearing about people faced with the time-consuming job of appealing these 100%-plus increases, or, paying more tax than they can afford.

Not that it's any of my business, but if the borough relies so heavily on property taxes for revenue, why would that division be denied the resources to do its job? Wouldn't that be a place we'd want to invest?

The animosity this kind of problem generates among the people up here against the borough has a lot to do with the reasons people up here are rebelling against our comprehensive plan. They hate government! And with this kind of treatment, why shouldn't they?

Well, the cat's out of the bag, the damage is done, and the assessor probably is up my butt with a microscope.

Have to say, I'm glad I'm not on the board of equalization. They're in for a very busy year. Guess I've been all the help I can be. . .

Tom Kluberton lives in Sunshine.