Assessment Process

 Every year there is an assessment roll which lists every property and whether it is taxable or exempt.  Taxable property is listed showing the value of the land, improvements and the total.

This is supplied to the County Auditor and becomes the basis for real estate taxation.

Each local government entity has the authority to levy a portion of the consolidated mill rate.  The mill rates are determined by dividing by the government budget requests by total taxable value of that jurisdiction. 

The appraisal process begins with identifying, listing, and value all real property located within Ward County. The appraisal process is a systematic and logical method of collecting, analyzing and processing data into an estimate of value .  An appraisal is an estimate of value of an adequately described property on a specific date.  All real property is appraised according to its value on the assessment date which is February 1st of each year. 

 For residential and commercial property true and full value represents market value.  For agricultural property, true and full value represents the productive value or "the capitalized average annual gross return."

True and full value can also be referred to as market value.  It is the value most people would likely pay for a given property in it's present condition. 

A computer Assissted Mass Appraisal system is used to maintain an inventory of the properties. 

The three approaches to value available to estimate the market value of property are:  sales comparison, cost and income. 

Sales comparison is when you take other sales of similar properties and compare them to the subject property then adjust the sales prices for differences between the properties that sold and the subject property.
Cost approach is when you would build an exact replica of a building using the same or similar materials, design and workmanship.
Income approach is using a capitalization rate to convert income from property into property value. 

The assessors must notify property owners when their assessed value increases more than 10%.

The total amount of property tax to be paid in the county is determined by the budgets set by our elected officials (city, county commissioners, school and park districts, townships, etc.). Once the budgets for each political subdivision are set, the amount needed from property taxes is divided by the total taxable value to determine the mill levy. 

Although the assessor's valuation on the property doesn't determine the total amount of taxes paid, it does affect the uniform distribution of the property tax burden.

Another part of the assessment process, the assessor maintains land ownership records, whether on a computer program or field cards.  Most of the time both methods are utilized.