Community agreeable to appraisers

According to Sherry Winstrom, County Assessor, Stanard Appraisal Services Inc., began reappraising rural residential properties on September 19.

Three groups, with each group consisting of both Kimball County and Stanard employees, then went out into three different directions. In their first week they were able to complete 28 of the 35 townships in Kimball County, covering 250 of the 450 parcels that needed reappraisal.

Annette Morgan, one of the representatives from the assessors office said, “These farmers are just great. They have no problem talking to us, they understand and let us on the property, let us take pictures, telling us what’s gone and what is new. It’s been a pretty good experience, actually.” She went on to say, “We’re not there to invade, we’re there to snap some pictures and make sure what we’ve got is right, because if we’re over taxing them, then we don’t want to do that either.”

As many of Stanard’s employees live in the eastern part of the state, they will work two weeks on and two weeks off. They should be back again before the end of the month.

The task in the office, however, has not been as easily accomplished. As they are working at reappraising rural real estate, some properties have had as many as 20 - 40 outbuildings, all of which need to be recoded with photos attached. Although there have been some new buildings added, it is more often that buildings on record have been removed or are nearly falling down.

In that instance, the assessors value the buildings at a minimum $50, potentially saving the land owners hundreds or even thousands of dollars in taxable property.

The multitude of changes make data entry in the local assessor’s office time consuming, but well worth it, according to Morgan, who said the process “is a lot of work however, there’s a lot of progress being made.”

“Everything is beginning to be on one page,” Winstrom said.

The 2016 Tax Levies were presented by Josi Morgan, County Budget Officer. She reported that all subdivisions have turned in their budgets and tax requests and she had received the certified valuations from the assessors office and she has calculated the levies.

The ambulance fund levy dropped most significantly of all subdivisions, as their tax requirement for 2016 is just $78,440 compared to their 2015 tax requirement of $239,475.

The tax levy for the Kimball County general fund (including the road department) went up from 0.437948 to 0.451572, although in total it went down because of the reduced ambulance request.

No change in tax requirement was noted for the Agriculture Society, however, because of decreasing property valuations, the amount needed for their tax levy rose slightly by 0.000375.

The Plains Historical Society’s tax requirement came in only $154 more for 2016 than 2015 making their 2016 levy 0.001848.

The Kimball Public Schools general fund tax requirement was set at $5,723,319.95, down $182,833.35 from 2015, however the tax levy was raised to 1.022141 an increase of .016205.

All three fire districts showed no change in their 2016 tax requirement, however because of declining valuations, all three of their levies increased slightly.

Last year, the City of Kimball’s General fund tax requirement was $447,430 an increase of approximately $15,000 from the previous year. This year that amount has doubled as their tax requirement is at $478,386.50.