Property taxes a complicated issue

In this day and age when people can agree on next to nothing, there is one subject that unites people from every corner of Custer County: property valuations and the staggering increases in said valuations that are driving property values greatly upward and threatening to tax some people out of their homes.
The vast majority of the Custer County Commission’s public comment time for its past two meetings has been devoted to a parade of people who are less than pleased about the increase in their valuations. Some have seen their property valuations double or triple over the course of a couple of years, as the county continues to wrestle with getting its properties taxed at 85 percent of full and true market value, as required by law.
Several of those who are concerned about the spike in their assessments have come armed with information, and are questioning the way in which the property is assessed. The problem you can see unfolding, however, is you can see that different people have different ideas of how their property should be taxed, depending upon how the assessments are affecting them.
During the latest commission meeting one of the citizens who came before the commission said the county’s equalization department must do a deeper dive into the land and property being assessed, as a blanket approach is not fair to everybody within the range and township being assessed. And, that’s true. Just because two homes are relatively close to each other does not mean they are anything alike. During the same public comment time though, another man questioned why he was being singled out to receive a higher valuation than his neighbors. One person wanted more people singled out. Another wanted the blanket approach.
The same was true at a recent meeting held in Hill City regarding property taxes in Pennington County, which has seen valuations in Hill City and Keystone skyrocket, while other parts of the county’s valuations have leveled off. District 30 Rep. Dennis Krull was at the meeting, and said Hughes County was given a blanket 15 percent increase, while assessments in Pennington County singled out certain neighborhoods within the county.
“The department of equalization, if you think about the word,  that’s what it means, equalized across everybody. I don’t think we should pick out winners and losers,” Krull said.
No matter which way the equalization office does its assessments, someone is going to be upset. We are learning there are other ways it can be done, however, and that may lead to different approaches in different areas. Maybe it will help, but it will undoubtedly leave someone upset.
There is a surefire way to have assessments level off, and that is for people to quit moving here from other places and paying twice what a home is worth. If that is a trend that is going to continue, then something has to be done so that purchase doesn’t affect neighbors. The neighbors had nothing to do with that purchase.
We are happy everyone is engaged and ready to take this issue on, but there won’t be a quick, easy fix. Working together, perhaps we can start to turn the tide on what is a deeply complex issue.