Okay, it's 4:30. We're here to meet on the county board of appeal to stand for the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation
under God, indivisible, with justice for all. Okay, Carl, we'll just turn it over to you then. All right. So, I had sent out a board packet for the county board of appeal.
And what I'm going to do is I'm going to share that from my own computer and put it up on the monitor here, too. And I had sent this out earlier. Full screen. Uh basically just kind of gave you an overview of all the information that was
sent out. So it's the commissioner revenue letter just stating that we are in compliance. Uh the value changes from last year to this year. Uh all the good sales, all the good residential sales, all the county sales.
And then basically the sales for 2026. I've also included the vacant land sales that are less than 34 and a half acres, the lakeshore sales, and then the a gold review. Um, today we do not have any appeals that uh have called in or
been part of any of this. So, it's been pretty quiet for the most part. So getting started here is the first page or the first couple of pages are just kind of an overview of kind of what the assessment looks at. Um so our sales
date range that we're looking for for the 2025 um sales is from October 1st, 2023 through September 30th, 2024. There we go. Um, and so those are the
sales that we used to establish the 2025 assessment. Um, things that the state looks at is that we are looking at the assessment should be 100% of market. So if a property sells for $100,000, we should be assessing it at $100,000.
The range that they give us is between 90 and 105. We're outside of that range. We either need to raise values or we need the lower values. Um we need at least six sales to constitute a market. Um so for each jurisdiction, they need
six sales. And then that that six sale what they do is they range those parcels from smallest ratio to largest ratio. And the median sale or the middle one is what needs to fall between that 90 and 105. And how they calculate the ratio is
they take the sales price divided I'm sorry the assessed value divided by the sales price gives us a ratio. And that's that's how we look at that. So if the the sales price was uh you know $100,000 and the assessed
value was 95 it would mean our ratio was 95%. So that would be the ratio that's used. That's how they calculate for us. um any kind of questions on those first two
sheets there of what the state looks at and how they look at them. Uh the other thing that that they do is they also if you don't have six sales, which we have a couple of jurisdictions, basically most of the townships and a couple of the cities, they don't have five sales in a year. So then what's
looked at is what's called a fiveyear sales study. And then what the state looks at is what is is your market trending? So that if you had say 95 90 85 80 the state is going to come in and
say well why aren't you raising the values when you can see that they're they're starting to dip off. And the same thing is true if it's going the other direction. if you're going uh you know 90 95 100 105 110 why aren't you
lowering values of jurisdiction? So those there's a couple other things that we're looking at in the years past as well. Um so the state wants to see what we're doing to to adjust the assessment make it fit market. Carl does the state see everything?
State sees everything every good bad everything. So the other part that the state looks at is whether it's a qualified sale or not. Qualified sale would be between a willing buyer and seller who have no prior interest. Um so
if I sold to Chad um something along that where we're not family members, we're not business partners, we're not those other types of things. Um that's what the state is looking for. But if
you know Vicki and I were relatives and I sold to to Ricky or to Vicki and she was that would be not considered a good harm sale. Um in residential properties estate sales are not considered good sales but in agricultural sales they are
considered good sales. So there's a whole list there that's 28 page document stating whether what's a qualified sale and what is not. And you have to certify them correct that it is a good sale. Okay. And have you done any of them not
certified any of them this year? We still have to review all but I get that. But have you denied like one you did what number of years ago down at County Road 8? I'm not gonna say names, but Yes. Okay. That one you did. I know you
didn't because it wasn't a true market sale. Right. Right. Yep. Okay. But have you done any of them this year like that? Yes, we have. I mean, that's what Vicki and Matt as they're going out and viewing properties. They're they're looking at things. They're looking at is there new construction? Because new construction's kicked out. It's over a
certain percentage. Um those are those things as they're viewing, they also review those. Um, and then anything that's questionable like that might be kicked out before even Vicki and Matt see them, Linda would be going through those sales and just verifying that
they're good, too. So, but yes, we physically all of the good sales, Matt and Vicki will physically go and review each one of those. So, is that after they've been sold, they go
and review them? Yes. Yep. after they've been sold because then you get you get notice that they're sold. Yes. We get what's called an ECRB and so the recorder's office they take they get them in the initial part. Our office goes to look to make sure that
the legal descriptions are all correct, the names are right. Um basically all the required boxes are filled in there. And then once we get them, we send them over to the auditor's auditor's office and they do their piece to it. uh and then they go to the treasur and then
they go back to recorder's office and then they can file their deed for the property. So every one of those is it all goes through the state system. And I'm not going to go over the property tax piece because
that's just kind of again this is kind of a form that I kind of liked and so I just brought it forth and that we could show people as well as you all go through the budgeting process and see how that all works.
So the next page here is the certifi or certification of the state board of equalization and we had no changes um for that or so the state looked at our assessment um and what they found everything was within state guidelines
I just got this the other day so I was like well I'm going to include this too u with this we haven't had a state board increase or decrease since probably 2013. So, and that was the one that I
inherited. So, does Parkwood go to your your conferences? Uh, he was at our fall conference last year. Um, he was planning on being at our spring conference, but since they didn't actually pass a tax bill or a budget bill, he was still down there
doing work. So, he he didn't make it to our spring conference. It's a 50/50 whether the commissioner revenue is there or not. Yeah. So, and he's he's good because he's informed and I think he's learning a lot being the
commissioner revenue just seeing all the laws that they used to pass and now he's on the side of how do you implement these, right? And so I think it's a really good thing to have him in that position just because he can maybe slow down or say how the heck do
we implement this law? He was a house rep when he sat on a budget committee forever. Yep. So So I think it's a good good addition. Um I guess time will tell to see what what how it all works out.
So then uh to the next page, here's kind of a a listing showing the the value changes in each jurisdiction. So it shows the egg, it shows the new construction difference. Um just kind of shows you every jurisdiction and how
they they kind of moved with the assessment. And now just because you might see a farm total of 5.3% increase in market value, that does not mean that every property only saw a 5.3% increase in market value. Some might
have seen a 20%, some might have seen a 5% reduction. Like each parcel is a little bit different. That's it's an average. And again, that goes through the the egg, the residential, the seasonal rack, commercial industrial. There's not a lot
of commercial industrial out in the townships. Those numbers are really skewed by one property moving one direction or the other. So I don't I look at it them as a whole, not necessarily as an individual.
And then the cities, same thing. Um the only thing that we include is seasonal rec commercial and bed and breakfast and mobile home parks. So I got a question when somebody you know plugs in like a limited liability partnership or or say it was a
residential setting is that a triggerable mechanism for you to change it to a different classification. We value according or we value according to value classified classify according to use. So even if the jurisdiction
says, well, it's not zoned for whatever use, however it's being used is how we classify it. Okay. So it might be non-conforming in their zoning, but we're still going to if it's commercial industrial, we're still going to classify it. Is that So living out
corporate partnership car any of that then? No, it's according to the use. Okay. Okay. Thank you. So then this page here is the grand totals for the county. And this again, this is kind of where I like to look at
and see what actually happened overall. Um, and the thing that I did add was the new construction total because that wasn't previously included in assessment years. And this year we had a 40% between 2014
assessment and 20 or 2024 and 2025 we had a 40% increase in our new construction. And that's essentially because of you know a couple of big buildings that were being finished up.
The one in Ashby um the John Deere dealership down here. Um there was a little bit of work that went into the um the dairies. Um, so those are three big areas that had a lot of new construction
and that's a lot of that's a lot of where that new construction number went up. So those digesttors are are taxed. Those digesttors are taxable. Yes. Really? Yep. So that's that whole project out there
is about a $45 million project. That's huge. We're not going to be able to tax $45 million. No, we're if we we'll be lucky to get probably 6 million of it. Weren't they like 36,000 at one time in real estate taxes? Didn't you tell me that one time when they first built
them? The the D that's probably what they'll end up being. No, but the the complex before the digesttors and everything were in. It's just that complex you said was like $36,000. I'd have to go back and look in. Okay. So, so yeah, the digtor is considered
industrial. So, they're going to pay the 2% tax rate. They're going to pay like it it doesn't get the same egg classification as the dairy does. They're they're going to pay a lot more in tax. Um, the other thing about that
is the digtor portion. Um, a lot of that is considered equipment. So, that's why it's not taxable. So, so they're depreciating it then. Well, it's not part of the real estate. So, like the the digtor portion um kind of
what that looks like is it's it's in a big box and it looks like a big conx box and all the the stuff that cleanses the methane goes through that box and when it comes out the other end essentially it's
usable um natural gas. So, but that piece there I can't that's not taxable because it's all considered personal property. The car 25% market on their egg is 77.96 and
then below is 78.84. How does that tie in then to the above there on the total grand total where it's 6.01 and 4.8 four. So what that is kind of showing that of the market so
2025 egg is 77.96 or 78% of the market is arrived from egg value in Grant County. Okay. So that's what that's related to the total to the total. Yes. Yeah. So residential went up, you know, not
quite a full percentage. Seasonal wreck went down a little bit. Commercial industrial went up a little bit. Seasonal erect bed and breakfast mobile homes did the same. And stay. Again, those are small portions of the market.
That make sense? Yep. So, moving on. Uh the next page is a listing of all the sales that occurred in Grant County. And again, these are going to be the good sales, the bad sales, the relative sales, prior interest sales, the the new
construction kick out. So this is basically just to show you everything countywide. Believe there's going to be nine pages of sales. And again, these would be everything from vacant lots, the seasonal
properties, the commercial. You wouldn't you wouldn't assume there would be that many city that's Wow. Yeah. So, we had 210 sales, but not all of those are good. So,
But yeah, we go we have quite a few transactions that are then the next listing is going to be the all the good residential sales that occurred within the county. And these were all time trended. So this
year in Grant County, we had a 16 791% time trend. So basically what the state is saying is that if a sale sold in October of 23, if it had sold at
the end of September, it would have been it would have seen a 1.3019% monthly trend increase. So that was the growth in the market. And so monthly sold 13%.
What's that? You said monthly. So, so a a 1.319% monthly monthly and that's compounded monthly. So then what they do is they if it occurred on October 2nd, they're going
to time trend that all the way up to the uh January 2nd, 2025. So it might see 15 months of time trend or for that sale. So again, that sale is going to be more than what the actual
sales price is. So there's a couple of different things that I do to verify that the states um so we have something called MCAST that I go through and I put all our sales in and I kind of try to dissect it a little bit to see if I'm coming up with the
same numbers as the state. My numbers were identical to the states. Um, so then I also looked at paired sales analysis to see if those were showing the same type of growth in the market
and I found that it was 18%. So I wasn't going to fight a 16% diamond joint just to get something higher. So I I didn't appeal that to the state. Um so again these all the the good residential sales and see that they're they're time
adjusted and that's what we have to So, the next listing we're going to look at is the market sales trends. Um, and this is just something that I created that helped me with the local boards of appeal and I feel it's just good information to see. Um, our number
of foreclosures are going down. Um, for the 25 assessment, our number of good residential sales is picking up a little bit. Um, but in reality, it's about average of what we see in the past. Um,
so the foreclosures are only 5% of the the total market in good residential sales. Um, some things that that really stuck out this year was the average sales price um was a big increase from the prior year. Um, same thing with the median sales price is that we were
seeing a lot of kind of those mid-range homes were selling for a lot more money. And then we can even tell that with average sales price for residential properties offwater. So those again these are going to be
most of these were in the cities. The average sales price was 170,000. And then when we look at even those properties on water, they didn't see nearly as much of an increase as the off water properties. And then what I've done is I've just
kind of graphed kind of the the increase. And what we're kind of seeing is from 2015 through 2025, we're looking at about countywide about a 10% a year
increase over the last 10 years. So even over the last 10 years, we're seeing a lot more inflation in our market than probably what's would be standard. Standard is usually three to five.
Any questions on that? I got a question for you, Carl. So, the medium range home, people are paying more for them, right? Yes. So, the high-end homes though, they're not paying more. They're they're paying
about the same. So, what we had to do this year in our our cost tables is we ended up leaving the upper end hose houses houses basically where they are and we had to drag the whole bottom end of the market out. So, I did that through our cost tables and looking at
our depreciation. Um, and then what I do is I run an analysis on those sales to see did we actually get the mark that we were looking for. Um, and looking at all of that, yes, we did. So, those are all
where they should, but this was not an easy year to be doing dual jobs because there's there was a lot of movement in the tables and and just getting them to the appropriate levels was was definitely more difficult
this year with having to keep part of the market flat and the other part pushing up. Uh the next couple of pages are the sales listings for each of your areas. So it should start off with all the sales in each one of your jurisdictions.
So Troy, Ken, Dwight, and Bill, all of yours are listed kind of in a row there. And that's all sales for each jurisdiction individually. And then they're going to go into the good residential sales by each
of your jurisdictions. And then the last pages are going to be the 2026 sales already looking forward of any jurisdictions. And with a such a large time trend, I
was expecting a little bit of a bounce back. And it's kind of showing that in our 2026 sales already is that there's a little bit of a bounce back. Like in Herman, we're looking at a little bit of a bounce back. Um some of the townships were looking at a little bit of a bounce
back because you know with again such a large increase that to me the ratio the raw ratio does essentially the same thing but the state doesn't agree with me. Um, so I I do expect a little bounce back
from like the city of Herman because if you would have seen on the the value ranges that Herman saw a large increase. Herman city saw about a 38 and a half% increase in valuation. So, any questions on any of your sales?
moving on to the vacant land sales. So, this year we had to raise our vacant land in basically all of our cities. Um, we're noticing that we were we were low on all of it. Um so basically all of our jurisdictions we ended up doubling our
land value. Um again that was in conjunction with raising the lower end. One one of the best or the easiest ways to lower or raise values in the lower end of the properties is through the land valuation. Um because raising the
land value from 4,000 to 8,000 has more of an impact on a $20,000 house than doing that to a $200,000 house. And then even when we're looking at our sales, our median ratio is 52%.
It kind of shows you that our vacant sales be we were low. When we went back and looked last year, we were at like 94%. So there's just there's an increase in the market value in the the vacant land sales of less than 34 and a half.
So we had to do that. We did that with all the cities. Um you know we had a couple sales of $25,000 in Hoffman. We had um Ashky's $25,000 sale,
you know, and again, we just we needed to do something. Um we did have a little issue down in Herman with raising values as much as we did. Um, so we did at the local board of appeal go back and re-evalue those or take a second look at
those and we did end up lowering the values on the vacant um lots in Herman City as well. So it's kind of one of those things that if you know there were a lot of people who came to the the local um which is good because it kind of gave us an indicator
that hey maybe we overshot this one segment of the market. Um and they kind of gave us their their input and why they thought their values were overvalued. Um Vicki came back and I kind of looked at the the land values again. We looked at actually all the way
from since we had our CAMA system till today and we kind of agreed that yep, we need to make a little bit of an adjustment. So we did that and we didn't just touch the parcels that came to appeal. We touched every parcel that should have been fixed whether they
appealed or not. So again, we were making it fair and equitable for all people within the city regardless of whether they did it make a difference if there were services into them and improvements on the Some of them already had they already got water.
Yeah, it was the vacant lots, not the improvements. Right. And then we're we're also this summer we're going through um and we're going to make some adjustments in in Herman even going forward yet and we're going to kind of equalize those values and then we're
going to use that same methodology and hit every other city in the county and use that same methodology so that we can kind of put a cap on certain values and we can put a minimum on other ones. Um that way we don't end up with a lot
having or a city block having almost $90,000 of value on it. We want to make sure that a block is still only worth so much. Yeah. So is there any specials that are going to give it a negative effect on valuation that that are on some of them
lots down there? I don't track the special. Okay. So that would be the city and Chad's department. So if there's, you know, some type of assessment on the property and, you
know, say you got the valuation and and there's a true value there to it. But then, you know what I mean? It'll that that special will should take that valuation down because there's the true value of that lot is it may or it may not. It all depends on whether the
special's been paid off or not. The state actually says you can't adjust the values because of those types of things. Really, it's just like an egg district. You can't adjust values because of it. So, we we heard a little black about our vacant lands, but again, we had the
sales to to back those up what we did there. So, then moving on to the lakeshore sales. Uh there were only two sales on on Pelican Lake. Um we still ended up doing a 3% increase on our Pelican Lake sales.
Um same thing with Barrett. I believe we just left Barrett the same, but we end up increasing our vacant lots on Barrett. Ponditar Lake. Um, again, they also saw the 3% increase that got him into that 90 percentile as well.
Um, and then looking forward to 2026, um, with one sale, it's not really enough to go off of. Any questions on our vacant land or lakeshore sales?
So, the next listing that I have is the egg listing, and it just kind of shows you that what's going on here in Grant County. It shows you the average assessed uh for 2014, we're looking at about
7,100 per acre. In 2025, we're looking at 7250. Um, and we're looking at a slight decrease for 2026 at the about 7,100 acre again. So then same thing with sale price for
tillable acre. Uh 2024 was 85. Uh 2025 we're looking at about 9,200 per acre. And then for the preliminary 2026, those values are starting to drop down. So, we're starting to see that
um I believe I when I ran our ratio here just the other day, we were sitting at about 106%. So, as of this point, if the trend or if the egg market were or the sales study were to close today, you know, we're probably looking at probably an 8 9%
reduction in value. Um it's still too early to tell, but that's kind of where we're we're sitting. Um that's going to have a huge impact. Whatever happens to egg has a large impact on residential, seasonal, commercial properties
because again they're 78% of the market. 78% if you reduce 8% that's a big change. Yep. Of course it's likewise the other way. It's likewise. Yep. And so that's where a lot of people were really
worried about what was going to happen this year with egg still seeing a 6% increase for the 25 assessment. Um, a lot of it basically it's just it's just bumping to the next level. And then when we have another $5 million worth of
new construction value that helps offset those increases as well. So that's $5 million additional over last year. um or you know $15 million worth of new construction. That's value that wasn't here prior.
Those are new buildings. Those are new sheds. Those are you know those types of things. So those are things that weren't paying taxes prior. So they help offset some of that increase. Um and then same thing with the median.
Um they're they're all seeing increases other than 2026. They're starting to come down a little bit. They they started low. We had a few of those uh auction sales and you know they kind of drugged the market down. We saw
a little bit of a an increase there probably January time frame which is not typical and then now we're starting to see a little bit lower sale prices again. So I'm sure and that's just because of the egg market right now.
Any questions on that? Then the next couple of pages or the next page here, these are the 2020 the sales listings for the 25 assessments. So these are October 1st, 2023 through September 30th, 2024.
I believe there's three pages of those. And from those we had 19 sales and they comprised 26 parcels. Um so this year we also did a little we did a $100 increase on the woods pasture
non-crop acorage. Um and then we did a 6% increase on our tillable land. And we're signing up for green acres. We have 177 parcels that are part of the Greenacre program, but not any new ones,
right? Uh yeah, we've got new ones. So, as Matt and Vicki are out looking at properties, um it it's a designated wetland. Um
yeah, and we add those like wetland acres back onto the parcel. will send out the owner a green acres application um because they qual you know if they qualify for it well they're they're entitled to it y um considering about
three or four years ago that's when we kind of made the change we only had a dozen income so we brought out green acres to a lot of parks And then the last three pages are a listing or last yeah sorry the
last two pages are the 2026 egg sales that are were updated as of last. So those are the numbers that kind of show back to where the egg market is and the average tillable and the median table and otherwise countywide uh commercial
properties also saw about a 6% increase in valuation. Um some of the cities the other changes elbow lake saw an 8% increase saw 2.2% 2% Herman saw that 38 and a half. Norcross and Wendel both saw 11.3
and then Barrett Offwater saw 5.8% decrease in value and a 5.5% increase on the lake shore or on on the lake. Um new construction for the 25
assessment was was definitely up. There were 21 new homes built in Grant County. Um that doesn't include the ones that were tore down, but that's 21 new houses that that were built. Um and then the eight tier limit has
increased from 3.5 million to 3.8 million for the 25. And that is the information that I have for you guys. If you have other other questions or concerns, so the appraisers right now are out viewing properties for their win. So
every 5 years we are required to go out and physically review every parcel. Um we set up a quartortile because it always seems like something comes up either we have a a wind event and it takes out
a whole chunk of properties. we got to go out and reevaluate them or you know seems like somebody slips and not saying that it happened now but somebody could slip and fall and break their leg and they're they're out for a
couple of months. It just it slows down the bowl assessment and usually we use that other year just to kind of catch up. So that's why we use a port tile versus tile. Um the appraisers send out letters before they go out to a jurisdiction. We started that during
COVID and that seems to really help. Um, a lot of people say, "Yep, we knew you were coming." Like that that flyer really makes it a lot easier for appraisers to be then that way they don't get booted off nearly as many parcels,
which still happens. We still get booted. So when somebody tells them to get on, what's the process then? They just assess it based on it. So the if if they're already in the middle of it, they're going to finish what they're doing and they're going to go back to
their vehicle and they'll probably go sit on the the road and finish the assessment from there. Um, we did have a situation where they said, "You're still welcome, but we just don't want this appraiser on their person." So
then in that situation, we make notes and the other appraisers assigned to that. Then before they go out to that property again, they'll call out to the owner and set up a time to to to view their parcel and then make that work.
So, um, but some of them just don't want to sell. So we have there's a list of a couple that we just we don't go to. So we assess those from the road. We have pictometry. Um and we just we make the
best assumptions that we can. Do any of them ever call back and complain that the assessment was too high when they don't let you do it? Very rarely. I hope not. because if they don't allow you to view the property, they cannot appeal to the
local board of appeal, right? They can appeal to the county board. Um, but it's up to the county board's discretion of whether they want, you know, the assessor to view it prior to making any adjustment. And then their next option would be tax
court and then as Yep. Okay. Or do we have anything else today? Oh, any more questions again? Okay. So, I'd like the record to reflect that Doyle the chairman wasn't here. Doyle Spears
the chairman today. And that's the end of the meeting then and the time is 5:11. Thank you. did well. Thank you.