Many Slave Lakers got a rude shock when their property tax notices arrived last month. The actual tax amount may or may not have been shocking, but the assessed value of their property certainly was. Some are thinking – and saying – that it is unrealistically high.
Local realtor Judy Olsen raised the matter at last week’s Chamber of Commerce meeting. Addressing her question to the mayor and town manager, Olsen asked if they’d had any complaints.
“I’ve had one,” said mayor Karina Pillay-Kinnee.
“There’ll be more,” chimed in Chamber vice president Jeff Taylor.
Olsen carried on to say that the assessment values are 10 to 20 per cent higher than the actual values of property.
“I’m wondering how it happened,” she said, adding that the values looked more like asking prices than actual selling prices.
Town manager Betty Osmond explained the process, as presented to the town by the independent assessor that does the job once a year. The 2008 assessment is actually a year old, she said, having taken place last year when the real estate boom was at its peak.
“The assessor was quite confident in his numbers,” she said, noting that town council had grilled him quite vigorously when he made his presentation earlier this spring.
But in any case, Osmond said, the tax increases property owners saw were not tied directly to their rise in house prices. Council sets the tax rate according to what it needs to run the town for a year – hence the average three per cent tax increase.
Council actually had to reduce the mill rate to accomplish that. Leaving the mill rate the same as last year would have resulted in tax increases that did reflect the average property value increase of 34 per cent.
How it plays out, Osmond says, is that those whose property assessments went up 34 per cent or less will see the three per cent tax increase. Those who saw a greater than 34 per cent increase in property value will see more.
There will be appeals, of course. They cost $25 apiece (presumably because they cost the town in staff time, and perhaps also to discourage frivolous appeals) and are reviewed by an appeal board.
Osmond says that appellants will be put on to the assessor, for an explanation of the process he used to come up with the figures.

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