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Property value issues deep

Report concludes auditor  needs to remove 47,000 overrides, adjustments before 2013 revaluation.

Property value changes coming

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By Bridgette Outten, Staff Writer Updated 8:32 AM Monday, July 26, 2010

SPRINGFIELD — A report conducted earlier this year shows the Clark County Auditor’s Office has applied more than 47,000 overrides and adjustments to property values since 2007.

The report, which cost the auditor’s office $3,480, concluded all of the property value adjustments must be removed if the county’s 2013 revaluation is going to bring “fair and equitable values” back to area homes and commercial property.

Local property values showed inconsistencies after a 2007 revaluation in which every parcel was reappraised.

Clark County Auditor George Sodders blamed the inconsistencies on the real estate market fluctuations that came with the recession. But a News-Sun review found widespread discrepancies in the data used to set the values. That revaluation led to a record number of appeals and to a high number of adjustments by a the county’s Board of Revision.

The auditor’s office is conducting a triennial update, a statistical review of property values performed every three years that is mandated by state law. But the auditor’s office study in January concluded that the discrepancies that began in 2007 will likely not be resolved until 2013.

Sodders said the report, assembled by Tyler Technologies,, a government technology consultant, is meant to get a summary of “activity that has taken place in the system” that resulted from Board of Revision appeals and from the county’s 2009 equalization project. It is meant to help his office prepare for this year’s triennial update and the 2013 revaluation, he said.

The report found 47,954 overrides, adjustments and factors have been applied to local property values in the county’s Computer-assisted Mass Appraisal system since 2007.

The report said property values in 520 of the county’s 632 neighborhoods, or 82 percent, have been affected by the adjustments.

Lou Caldwell, who co-authored the analysis, said he doesn’t have an opinion on what the county could have done differently.

“We’re not trying to say this was egregiously wrong or there was some big flaw back in 2005 or 2006,” Caldwell said. “That wasn’t part of the study.”

Both Sodders and a consultant to his office, John Ebert, said the report was not surprising, given the steep decline of the real estate market and the fact that they used adjustments to make the values reflect the market.

Sodders said requesting the report has nothing to do with the 2007 revaluation.

“Keep in mind that we never commissioned the report in any kind of connection with the reval,” the auditor said. “That issue is dead, it’s done.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 328-0374 or boutten@coxohio.com.

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