Assessments challenged

A Coeur d’Alene attorney has filed a class action lawsuit against Kootenai County and Assessor Mike McDowell for not sending assessment notices to property owners by the June 4 deadline.

John Magnuson filed the suit July 19 in 1st District Court, asking a judge to void the 2007 property valuations. That means the county would have to use the 2006 valuations to calculate property tax bills for the estimated 78,000 parcels in Kootenai County.

The suit was filed as a class action because the missed deadline, which the county contends was due to new software, potentially affects every property owner in the county.

McDowell acknowledges that the county did miss the deadline called for in state law because of last-minute glitches with a new software system that keeps the county’s property and tax records. Instead of June 4, the majority of the notices were mailed by June 8, he said.

“We did it all in good faith,” McDowell said. “There’s been no harm.”

He argues that Magnuson’s proposed solution of rolling back the valuations to 2006 levels isn’t a realistic remedy.

“It would create gross inequities,” McDowell said, adding that the 2007 assessment reflects market changes, meaning that some property values went up in some areas while others decreased.

Overall, property values increased 13 percent this year.

Deputy County Attorney Pat Braden wasn’t available for comment.

Magnuson, whose lawsuit specifically cites the late assessment notice he got for his storage condo in Post Falls, said the county failed to comply with state law that reads that the valuation assessment notices “shall be delivered to the taxpayer” no later than the “first Monday in June.”

“We all live with a litany of statutory deadlines,” Magnuson said Thursday. “My intention is to afford as much leeway with deadlines as (the assessor) does the taxpayer — which is none.”

Magnuson said the county doesn’t give leniency to property owners who miss the deadline to appeal their assessments.

“You try filing an appeal one day late and see if they say ‘close enough,’ ” Magnuson said.

The county received 778 appeals, including numerous ones for Magnuson-owned properties. McDowell said that is proof that the delay didn’t impact property owners and that they still had plenty of time to review their assessments and file appeals.

The Kootenai County Commission, acting as the Board of Equalization, finished hearing the appeals Tuesday. The county had to ask the Idaho Tax Commission for an extension because of the high number of appeals.

Magnuson said new software and computer problems are no excuse for missing a deadline the county knows a year in advance.

“I’ve not had many courts too sympathetic to me if I said I had a computer problem at the office,” Magnuson said.

In November, the county was honored nationally for the new software system, selected from about 1,300 local governments that use the ProVal system.

Manatron, which makes the ProVal system, said it selected Kootenai County because it has made “exceptional progress” in operating the system efficiently.

Kootenai County was one of the first three counties in Idaho to use the software and has helped ProVal customize it to work with Idaho property assessment laws.