REASSESSMENT HITS HOME FOR MANY IN COUNTY

The coming of another odd-numbered year has meant reassessment of property across Missouri, and about 9,000 property owners in Cape Girardeau County have been informed by the assessor that the assessed valuations of their properties have gone up.

The staff of Cape Girardeau County's assessor, Jerry Reynolds, reviewed more than 32,000 parcels for reassessment purposes and mailed 9,000 notices to the owners of those properties whose assessed valuations were increased. Within a couple of days after the notices went out, his office already was receiving calls from taxpayers wanting to know what they could do to keep their assessed valuations on which taxes are based -- from going up.

Last year, a non-reassessment year, only 500 notices went out, and they were all a result of new construction. This year, valuations jumped nearly 11 percent overall, an amount Reynolds called a tremendous increase. It put the county's real estate valuation at $543,779,170, and that doesn't include state-assessed railroad and utility valuations, which the assessor's office has yet to receive.

While property assessment isn't an exacting science, assessors do use guidelines to establish assessed values. Once those values are determined, commercial property is assessed at 32 percent and residential property at 19 percent of market values. Farmland is assessed at 12 percent of the value based on the productivity of the land using a soil-classification system of the Missouri Tax Commission.

But other factors go into the process of establishing home values, including consideration of what similar houses in the neighborhood sell for. That leaves a lot of room for differences of opinion between the assessor and property owners.

School districts that are considering tax-increase proposals will anxiously await the final outcome of assessments in their districts, because those numbers will determine how tax rates are set by the districts.

Property owners who disagree with the new assessed values set on their property may go before the Board of Equalization, which will meet June 11 through July 28 to consider appeals. But taxpayers had best be prepared to present evidence that the assessed value is wrong. For homeowners, that includes a real-estate appraisal or recent sales contract and for commercial property owners a detailed income-and-expense analysis of the property.

The board is there for the taxpayers' benefit, and those who can show their property is valued too high should take advantage of the appeals process.