Editor:

For decades, the Baldwin County Revenue Office had adequate time to properly determine the fair market value of a home, achieving equalization of fair market value to appraised value. Under this quadrennial law, it is likely a greater level of accuracy could be achieved to meet equalization.

With Governor Riley’s decision to call for annual appraisals, county revenue departments are now expected to perform a highly accurate job each and every year, but Baldwin County property owners are feeling the effects of the decision since properties that may have not been appraised for years are now being reappraised and in many cases, at much higher values than previous years. This is understandable as a home that was not appraised for ‘X’ numbers of years, could expect an increase whether sudden or slight.

The county revenue department has enacted a system called mass appraisal, which is necessary, in order to achieve the States guidelines of 98-102 percent of fair market value.

Our county revenue department certainly needs a speedy technique to reappraise properties on an annual equalization basis that attains consistency and fairness for property owners.

The policy of the Alabama Department of Revenue is not to raise revenue for the state and county coffers, but to treat all property owners, equally and fairly, to ensure their homes are not overvalued and overtaxes, or undervalued and under taxed and to ensure that the burden of property taxes is applied equally across the board. Yet, the Baldwin County Revenue Office has haphazardly implemented the mass appraisal process, a somewhat complicated system that requires a keen eye for statistical analysis and regression models, not something to be taken lightly.

To my understanding, the County Revenue Office has implemented what is called a factor or a trending factor that results in erroneous property values. This trending factor seems to save the day for our county appraisers as it cuts down on workload and becomes a quick calculated fix, however, a quick calculated fix requires a well-reasoned approach and if not, residents will face inequitable and extravagant tax bills and in some cases undervalued assessments resulting in lost revenues.

I know of a humble cottage home built in 1974 on West Beach Boulevard, facing the lagoon that increased in valuation from $308,000 last year to $1,250,000 this year.

Right across the boulevard, facing the Gulf, recently constructed homes are valued around $1,500,000 to $2,500,000. During the valuation period of Oct. 1, 2005 to Sept. 30, 2006, multiple listing sales data shows only 6 properties sold with a median sales price of $688,000, however one of these six properties sold for $1.6 million thereby driving the trending factor up and placing an unfair valuation on the cottages and the other five properties.

There are many other examples similar to this situation, which abound throughout the county and in fact, when there are no sales in a neighborhood, there was no factoring resulting in increased assessments or taxes. Is this equal treatment?

The West Beach cottage homeowner said, “I’m paying for that guy,” as he pointed at those other million dollar homes. He’s now one of them.

And he’s probably right. If his home was grouped with the other homes on West Beach Boulevard, and the factoring was applied to match the county’s sales data, then every home in that grouping would be increased equally. Are we now socialists in Alabama?

I for one do completely affirm that the county revenue office’s implementation of the mass appraisal process is highly flawed. The execution missed the mark, and whether the county says that it met 98 percent equalization is of no importance.

You could look good with the law of averages, and achieve equalization, but when it boils down to the individual taxpayer, in particular single-family homeowners, some are being extremely overvalued. Some are undervalued, and some may believe their appraisal is fair.

But, why should Revenue Commissioner Nix depend on taxpayer appeals to fix this flawed system?

In the paper, Nix said, that if there is an erroneous appraisal that is the “whole purpose of the notice that we sent out” and “some areas I already know, just from things that we’ve seen come in, because we applied that factor to it, we know we’re going to have to go specifically now into that area and probably lower that factor or remove the factor altogether to bring their value down.”

How about we just get the appraisals fair and accurate and I respectfully say, stop being a burden on your constituents. We shouldn’t have to appeal, except for extraordinary circumstances.

An appeal should not be your vanguard to a flawed, muddled, slapdash approach to appraising our properties. Get your factoring, your “geo-neighborhoods” and your statistics accurate. Why should a factoring be taken away if it shouldn’t have been there in the first place?

I urge a rollback to the 2006 values until this system achieves taxpayer equalization. Please, achieve equalization for everyone. That is the goal, is it not ?