The Common Council met 08/02/2023. One of the items they received was a presentation from City Assessor Matthew Tooke providing an overview of the city-wide property reevaluation process that will be taking place this year. In fact, reassessment letters are expected to start going out at the end of this month, August 2023.
I’ve prepared a complete transcript of the presentation along with PowerPoint slides for download.
State law requires each municipality to assess all property within 10% of market value at least once in a five-year period. Appleton last did a revaluation in 2019, and since then property prices have markedly increased.
In theory, the revaluation they will be conducting will only be bringing city assessments of properties in line with the current market value. If the city’s budget does not increase and if all the properties see their assessed value increase by the same percentage, then property taxes for any given property will remain the same after the revaluation as it was before the revaluation even though their assessed value will have increased.
It is however possible that individual properties could see their taxes go up because, in addition to being required by law, the purpose of a city-wide revaluation is to make sure that the tax burden is equitably distributed across all properties. Using the example of four properties, if one is currently assessed at 40% below market, the second is at 50% below market, the third is 41% below market value, and the fourth is 35% below market, when they are brought up to 100% of market value, their portion of the tax burden will change.
If the average property in the city was 40% under assesses, then the property taxes for the first house would remain the same once its assessment was increased. The taxes would increase for the house that had been 50% undervalued. It would also increase but not by as much for the house that was undervalued by 41%. On the other hand, the house that was only undervalued by 35% when the average was 40% would see its tax burden go down.
So, the lack of an increase in taxes for any given property is dependent on two factors:
- That its assessed value does not increase more than the average for the entire city.
- That the city’s budget for next year does not increase over this year’s budget.
An additional factor would be the budgets for the three local counties, the Fox Cities Technical College, and the school districts that serve Appleton residents, and other, non-city property tax items.
City staff has put together a webpage that will answer frequently asked questions and provide an estimate to property owners on how their revaluation may affect their taxes. Additionally, the website provides information on the recent sales that were used to inform assessments. Property owners will also be able to double check what the assessor used for things like square footage, bedroom and bathroom counts, garage type, etc.
Revaluation notices will start going out at the end of the month. Once they have been mailed out, the city will hold a period called Open Book which is an opportunity for property owners to informally sit down with staff and discuss the reasons for their valuation.
If anyone wishes to appeal the reassessed value of their property, the formal appeal is called Board of Review, and that will be held October 4.
View full meeting details and video here: https://cityofappleton.legistar.com/MeetingDetail.aspx?ID=1099777&GUID=6EB2E9A5-E608-4DEC-B4D9-FD48291CA63D
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