The Saline County Appraiser’s Office in Kansas had 374 informal protests of the 2016 property values, according to a county appraiser’s report made to the County Commission’s office. That was up from the 321 hearings in 2015.
“We will be starting up our data collection and verification of properties throughout the county that we do every summer,” County Appraiser Sean Robertson told the Salina Journal.
Robertson said the reason a value was changed was because the office was made aware of characteristics of the property that the office previously did not know.
“Once we have correct information about the property, our values are much, much better,” he said. “If you have different information regarding the condition of the house, or there is some information that is wrong or you feel the comparable we used doesn’t apply, absolutely we would change it.”
Commission Chairman Monte Shadwick said certain properties have had huge increases in their assessed values stemming from a change to an income-based appraisal.
“There has been the perception that we changed appraisal techniques, for a lack of a better term, and that is not true,” he said.