Jackson County Assessments May Be Frozen

This past week, there has been a large movement to freeze the controversial Jackson County property tax assessments that were sent to property owners last month. Jackson County legislators want the current assessments completely discarded and to revert to last year’s assessments.

On Friday, County legislators penned a letter to a Jackson County executive detailing their unhappiness, “the massive swings in home and land values, often on the same block, cause us to distrust the process used in valuation.”

The County Assessor Gail McCann Beatty who is in defense of her work does not believe that a re-valuation of the properties is needed.

“I don’t think we have a reason to start over. I think we will continue with the process, where we are. We have about 5 percent of the parcels that have turned in reviews so far. We will continue to process those,” McCann Beatty said on Monday.

County Assessor Gail McCann Beatty

There has been a news report that came out that accused the county of not utilizing MLS services for finding nearby home sales in the area while looking at valuations. The MLS in the residential appraisal property tax world is largely seen as the number one tool to assessors in seeing market transactions and helping set values for the following year. Without the system, it would be difficult to fairly value all of the properties.

This would not be the first time Jackson County has frozen property valuations after the same issue arose six years ago. Below is the full response to Jackson County.