Are Manatee County property valuations set unfairly high?

Manatee County property valuation process fair?

I had a frustrating experience last year in my attempt to get the valuation of our property adjusted to be consistent with other similar units in our community of 28 townhomes. The property appraiser set our unit's value at 25 percent higher than the ones three doors away.

After providing a significant amount of supporting documentation, they would not correct it, so I filed a petition for the Value Adjustment Board (VAB) to review it. The VAB is supposed to be an independent review outside the property appraisers office. The special magistrates they hire are paid by the county. The county receives tax revenues based on the valuations they set.

They denied my petition.

I recently heard a news story stating there is a nationwide trend in counties purposely setting property values high, so they can achieve the level of tax revenues they need to pay their operating expenses. That piqued my interest so I made a public records request for the results of the 2015 VAB process.

There were 505 petitions filed for value. Of that, 439 were withdrawn prior to hearing, 65 were denied, and one (!) was approved, for a grand total tax reduction of $1,261.86.

I'll defer to the reader to draw their own conclusions.

This is concerning to me given all the recent discussions the county has been having on trying to find other sources of revenue and the fact that they haven't collected 100 percent of impact fees for some time now.

At the end of the day, the responsibility for setting fair property values sits with our elected county commissioners. Please do not put the burden of not collecting impact fees on the backs of all taxpayers by setting artificially high property values.

Mike Eiffert

Bradenton

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Are Manatee County property valuations set unfairly high? ."