Assessments steady this year, but city residents should brace for hike in 2024

While there were few changes in this year’s tax rolls, city residents can expect a big jump on assessments in 2024 and housing sales continue to be strong driving up home values.

At Tuesday night’s board of review meeting for the city of Medford, the city’s assessors reported the city assessed value was at 88% of the estimated fair market/ equalized value set for the area. The change in overall value is factored from the 125 residential sales in the city that occurred in the past year.

While 2023 was considered a maintenance year for the city where there were only spot changes made, the assessors cautioned city council members to expect changes next year.

Wisconsin law requires assessed values to be within 10 percent of the equalized value amounts at least once every four years. With the city off by 12% this year, and likely for it to be higher once the official equalized value totals for municipalities are released, the assessors will likely plan on doing an interim market update which looks at classifications of home types.

For example, if the housing market is hot for ranch style homes, homes of that type could see a bigger adjustment than for other styles of homes. The last full city revaluation occurred in 2021.

While the city is at 12 percent below equalized, the assessors predicted that the city could expect to see a 20% increase in assessed values next year based on what they have seen in other communities. For example, Rothschild recently went up by 17% while assessed values in Marathon City went up about 40%.

The board of review is the annual process by which residents may appeal to the municipal board to make changes to the assessment roles if a property owner can prove an error was made or some factor was not included by the assessors.

In practice, most issues are resolved in the open book process where residents meet with the assessors to have their questions answered.

This was the case with Leanne Leonhard at 631 N. Second Street who had filed to have an objection heard at the meeting. The assessor and the property owner reached an agreement prior to the meeting with the change noted on the assessment rolls as presented to the board of review.

Walmart again had filed an objection, however, with the 2022 objection still in circuit court, the board of review voted to waive this year’s objection directly to circuit court to be combined with the existing case.

Walmart has sought to have their property tax assessment reduced under the so-called dark stores loophole in Wisconsin law.

Council member Mike Bub voted against waiving the objection into circuit court. He said Walmart should have to tell the board what their objections are to the assessed value. “Why are we giving them special privileges?” Bub asked.

Anything said during the board of review can be used as evidence in circuit court. It is routine across the state for larger assessments to go directly to court rather than being talked about at the board level. It was noted these cases are far more complex than dealing with a private homeowner.