(Sage Smiley / KSTK)
Wrangell’s borough administration is working towards a property value reassessment of the whole community.
When the borough assembly levied property taxes this year, borough manager Jeff Good pointed out that some properties in town hadn’t been reassessed in decades. At a borough meeting on July 26, Good reiterated that properties in town need to be reassessed so that valuations are fair.
“The main goal is just to get it so that you can look at any property and feel like you’re paying the same amount as the person next to you,” Good told Wrangell’s assembly members, continuing: “And I don’t think right now I could look at each property and say that we are [assessing properties equally], or [say] that it’s even close to being right. So that’s the biggest issue that I would like to get straightened out.”
That doesn’t mean property taxes will automatically go up. Taxes are levied based off of the community’s mill rate, or the amount taxed per assessed value. Good says Wrangell’s assembly would decide whether to raise or lower the mill rate once the property assessments came back.
“We know what our income is — what we need in terms of revenue, so from there, we can adjust the mill rate to match that accordingly,” Good explains. “It’s not to tax more or anything else, it’s to just make sure that everyone is paying the equal amount that they should be compared to their neighbor.”
He estimates reassessing properties throughout the community will cost the borough between $45-$50,000. He says the borough administration hopes to start the reassessment process as soon as possible – putting out a request for proposals within the next few weeks – but doesn’t yet have a firm timeline.
This year’s property taxes, based on the borough’s current property value assessments, are due by October 15.
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