State Says County Undervalues Properties Whitman Assessor Says Staff Is Working To Fix Complaints

Whitman County is still undervaluing its properties despite being previously notified of the problem, according to the Washington state auditor.

An auditor’s report released this week found that the county’s appraisal practices have not been up to state code, a chronic problem that the county was instructed to correct in 1996.

The audit states that the county hadn’t followed through with a four-year plan to correct the problem.

“We wanted the county to have that period of time to work with the Department of Revenue’s corrective action plan,” said State Auditor Brian Sonntag. “The county was working on smaller cities and towns first. We were waiting until this year (1999) when the county did the city of Pullman to see if that plan was being followed.”

According to the audit, it wasn’t. But county officials disagree.

“We’re still arguing with the state about that,” said Joe Reynolds, Whitman County assessor. He said the county is appraising properties at just a few percentage points shy of true value, a big improvement over the 65 percent of value that the county had been assessing five years ago.

“All of our property in Whitman County is around 97 percent (of its true value) and has been for the last three years,” he said, explaining that he believes his office has fixed the property assessment problem.

The audit, which covers all of 1999, found that the county assessor’s office has used sales data from public record bulletins to identify sales within the county, subtracted $500 from the price and then used that information to update the appraised value of the property.

This method, called “sales chasing,” results in discriminatory assessments, according to the audit.

“They’re all wet on that,” Reynolds said of the finding, adding that it was a tool the county was using to fix assessments that had put too much value on the property.

Because the county only inspects a property once every six years, it adjusts values every year using a computer appraisal system, Reynolds said.

He and his employees discovered that the computer system wasn’t working for properties in Pullman.

“We noticed the values were a little high,” Reynolds said. That’s why the appraiser went in, looked at the sales figures and lowered the values. As far as subtracting $500 from the sales price, “he probably shouldn’t have done that,” Reynolds said of that employee. “The adjustment just looked wrong.”

Another issue in the audit was that the office didn’t physically inspect or appraise new construction.

“I think we got a little behind on the building permits,” Reynolds said. “We’re a little short staffed.”

Undervaluing the county’s properties could affect the money the county brings in with property taxes, said David Saavedra, a consultant with the State Department of Revenue.

“If they were shortchanging anybody, they would be shortchanging themselves or the taxing districts such as cities, school districts and library districts,” Saavedra said.