By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The latest round of property valuations are making their way into mailboxes across Barton County. Appraiser Wendy Prosser presented figures from this year's valuation at Tuesday's county commission meeting. After last year's county-wide increase of 14.6 percent, numbers have leveled off to a 2.16 percent increase in 2024.
"The county values are based on the fair-market value or the sale prices of similar properties," Prosser said. "If properties are selling for more or less than the prior year, this could result in a change in the valuation of the properties. In addition, new construction, property characteristic updates, or property deterioration could also result in a change in the values."
Overall in the county, commercial property valuations increased 1.5 percent, residential went up 6.7 percent, and farmstead properties increased 11.5 percent. Agricultural land is not valued at fair-market value, rather an income-driven formula based on an eight-year average with a two-year lag. Therefore, this year's ag valuations were based on data from 2015-22 to determine price per acre per soil type, with the overall county valuation dropping 10 percent.
Among the major cities in the county, total real estate valuation in Great Bend increased three percent. Hoisington saw a five-percent increase, Ellinwood jumped 10.5 percent, and Claflin saw a nine-percent increase.
Commissioners were quick to point out that an increase in valuation does not correlate to an increase in taxes. Barton County saw a $28 million increase in valuations last year but the county as a taxing entity continued its trend of dropping the mill levy to not collect more dollars. Commissioner Donna Zimmerman reiterated the county has not raised taxes since 2021.
"Overall, we're down 9.144 mills for the county's levy," she said. "We went down two mills in 2021, 3.2 mills in 2022, and almost four mills down in 2023 with the budget. I appreciate all the county departments that helped make that happen."
Commissioners also praised Prosser and staff for their customer service and willingness to encourage residents to contact the office with questions. Per statute, requests for appeal must be filed within 30 days of the valuation mailing date. That deadline falls on Friday, March 29. Prosser encouraged residents with questions to contact her office.
"I would take walk-ins," she said. "Unfortunately, because we have to pull the information and set it up in the system, that is why we schedule. If someone has brief questions, feel free to come by. We can see what we can answer without having to pull data.
"If we need to go in further, we can schedule an appeal. It's very informal. We allow 30 minutes to come in. We go through the property data to make sure we have our data correct. Part of the hearing is explaining how we do things, why we do it, looking and showing people how to read their valuation sheet so every year they can call and request that."
Contact the appraiser's office at (620) 793-1821 for questions or to schedule an appeal.