Kimball County revaluation nearly complete

The physical review of all 451 rural residential properties set for reappraisal is now complete with the long process of data entry still in the process of wrapping up. As of this week, more than half of the rural residential properties reappraisal valuations have been entered into the county’s computer system.

For the past few months, Stanard Appraisal Services Inc., (Stanard) has been working in conjunction with the Kimball County Assessor’s (Assessor) office to photograph, inspect and review all of the rural residential properties in the county.

Over the coming months they will move into Kimball, working on residential and commercial properties. Starting in the next few weeks, a team of one Standard representative and one Assessor’s office representative will be out photographing and inspecting the villages of Bushnell and Dix.

After gathering data from the field, the Stanard representatives thoroughly review the collected information, code buildings along with determining quality and condition, add or delete information, determine depreciation and make corrections, if needed, to each and every house and out building on the property for accurate valuations. Once they have completed their analysis of the property, they send their results to the Assessor’s office for input into the county system.

Not all outbuildings in the county were set to be inspected by Stanard. As this inspection and valuation is billed at $145 for each rural residentail property, it is not necessary for Stanard to examine every outbuilding in the county.

According to Sherry Winstrom, County Assessor, “I couldn’t justify paying them (Stanard) what they were charging the county for the single outbuildings with minimal value.”

As she explained, many properties have only a shed worth no more than $100.00 that would eventually only be taxed $1.69, so paying $145 for those lower valued outbuildings was not in the best interest of the tax payer or the county.

Winstrom and her staff are taking the photos of those properties on their own, following the exact model that Stanard is using so that valuation is still uniform across the board. Sixty percent of those rural outbuildings of lower value in the county have been photographed and are being entered into the county system at this time.

Once all data has been entered into the system, Stanard will review all information on the system, then they will do their market study, one of the last steps before the new cost tables are established.