Good morning District 27. I just finished crafting a letter to the South Dakota State Legislature's Study Committee on Property Tax Assessment Methodology and emailed it before the September 11, 2024 deadline.
If you recall, many South Dakotans were appealing their assessed property values at various local and county boards of equalization over a year ago due to the skyrocketing assessed property values across the state. I eventually took my appeal to the South Dakota Office of Hearing Examiners in Pierre and lost both of my appeals with Bennett and Pennington Counties. The Chief Hearing Officer said, more or less, that I did not make the case in either of my appeals which ultimately was the catalyst that got me into this state senate race.
When a local government can trespass on your posted private property and then argue you have a $10,000 view on your property OR do almost $50,000 damage to one's private property, claim they were not negligent, and then turn around and say your property is this much in assessed value, that was the final straw that broke the camel's back and made me get involved in running for office to change a broken system. My first-time experience dealing with the matter of objection to real property assessment left a bitter taste in my mouth, knowing full well, that if I damaged a street light or ran into a fire hydrant the city would send me an invoice for the damages, or go after my insurance company. Also, the blatant disregard for private property from our local government caused my home insurance premiums to go up for the next five years. Moreover, if the sewer backup should occur a third time, my insurance provider threatened that they would drop me. Therefore, I am encouraging and asking any landowners out there that if you have any concerns regarding the methodology of property tax assessment, please submit written public comments or testimony before September 11, 2024, to the following state legislators:
I understand that many of you may be skeptical about submitting a written comment or appearing in public at a meeting to provide testimony, but that is how the legislative process works. I have written state legislators in the past, and never received a reply. Hence, I don't know whether or not they will take anything I submitted in my email into consideration when crafting legislation. All the more reason why if I am elected your next state senator, I will be fighting to change the Property Tax Assessment Methodology and on my first order of business, make it mandatory that school board members attend all local and county boards of equalization since school districts receive 50 to 60% of property tax revenue. This is an issue that I am passionate about and affected me personally. At the end of the day, if I don't submit solutions to problems, then I can't complain. The question is: Does any of our state legislators have the will to fix the problem? God bless.
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