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Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Email Story to a Friend October 16, 2005 Charles and Georgie Gipe were hit recently with an unexpected tax bill of nearly $1,800 because of a mistake made by an appraiser more than a decade ago. County officials say they are trying to correct such errors to be fair to all taxpayers. Mail Tribune / Bob Pennell Assessment errors come due County mistakes detected years after being made surprise property owners with back taxes By JONEL ALECCIA Mail Tribune Charles and Georgie Gipe returned home from a family tragedy last month to find an $1,800 government mistake waiting in their mailbox. Still reeling from the sudden death of their only daughter to illness, the elderly Medford couple couldn’t quite believe the letter from the Jackson County Assessor’s Office. With little fanfare and almost no explanation, it said the Gipes’ property at 2801 Georgia St. was undervalued and had been for some time. To correct the problem, the Gipes would have to pay more than $300 in additional taxes for each of the past five years, the legal limit under Oregon law. Total due? $1,795.38. Advertisement "That was a big hump to pay," said Georgie Gipe, 82. What the letter didn’t say was that the mistake was made more than a decade ago, in 1993, when officials agree a county appraiser failed to change a crucial code in the Gipes’ property record. It didn’t say that a current county appraiser detected the error recently only by chance, or that two of the Gipes’ 27 neighbors faced the same situation. And it certainly didn’t mention what county Assessor Dan Ross reluctantly acknowledged: That perhaps 1,000 similar letters will go out to other Jackson County property owners this year, an attempt to rectify a range of staff mistakes affecting thousands of dollars in tax revenue. "It’s an error that was created and we’re fixing it," said Ross. "We value thousands of properties every year. Mistakes are made." Exactly how many and what kind of property tax valuation errors are detected annually is unclear, said Ross, who will soon mail out 2006-2007 assessments on 110,000 county properties. Taxes levied this year totaled more than $174 million. "There are so many kinds of errors that there can possibly be," he said. "It’s just the gamut." Regular reassessments conducted every six years ended in the 1990s, he said. Today, mistakes are discovered when appraisers randomly check files, Ross said. In the Gipes’ case, a staff member simply happened to check their computer file. Errors swing both ways, benefiting some property owners and penalizing others, he said. But Ross said he had no idea what percentage of questioned properties are undervalued versus overvalued. And neither he nor the county’s treasurer, Gary Cadle, could say how much revenue the county receives — or pays out — to rectify assessment mistakes. County officials said it would take considerable time and effort to respond to a Mail Tribune public records request for the documentation. "I am so busy I don’t have time to think about that," said Ross, who supervises a department of 36, down from nearly twice that more than a decade ago. "It means more work, more work, more work. We are so short-staffed that I am doing spreadsheet work." Too much work and too few resources make mistakes inevitable, Ross said. "It occurs a whole lot more than I want it to occur," he said. The county is still adapting to a computer system installed in 2002, he said. The Gipes said they do not dispute the final 2004-2005 assessment on the tidy green home they built a dozen years ago. According to county records, the assessed value of their property jumped by nearly 30 percent for this year, to $148,420, with a tax increase of $376.85. That was bad enough, they said. But what really irked the couple was being charged for five years of back taxes for a situation they didn’t cause and couldn’t detect. "If they had this problem, why didn’t they find it sooner? It took them 11 years to find this," Georgie Gipe said. "It seems so unjust that we’re stuck with a $1,700- plus bill now. Why should we have to pay for their mistake?" The answer, said Ross, who’s held office since 1989, lies in what’s fair for all taxpayers, not just a few. "In reality, everybody around (the Gipes) was paying the higher rate," Ross said. "The error occurred back in 1993. They got away with it all those years." County records show that while assessors properly changed categories for most of the 27 other properties on Georgia Street in 1992-93, they failed to correct at least two others. That includes property owned by Lila Weaver, an elderly widow who lives nearby. "That was one that was missed," Ross said. "Mrs. Weaver, she’s going to get a letter." The idea of paying five years’ worth of extra property taxes didn’t sit well with Lila Weaver nor her son, Kenneth Weaver, 62, whose properly classified property is next door. "It just seems that if the county made the mistake, it’s the county’s mistake," Kenneth Weaver said. "To go back five years, that’s not right." There’s also some dispute about whether state law allowing collection of back taxes applies in such cases. According to Oregon statute, if an error is a simple clerical mistake, the county can correct it and collect taxes retroactively. If the error is a mistake in assessment judgment, however, no such collection is allowed. Charles Gipe, 84, figured that an assessor used judgment to place his property in one category instead of another more than a decade ago. But Ross disagreed. "It was in the record. There was no judgment involved here," Ross said. "It was absolutely a clerical error. It would not take judgment for a person to pick up that card and say there was an error here.’" The Gipes’ error centered on the difference in valuations of property classes and local "market areas," Ross said. Generally, a market area is a group of properties that would sell for similar values, he said. The Gipes’ property originally was assigned property class 101 — a city code — which should have been changed to 401 — a rural code — in about 1993. "It’s like they’re being compared to some west-side Medford property, as compared to rural properties," Ross explained. "Obviously, the rural properties are more desirable." Ironically, the Gipes tried to sell their property last summer. If they’d been successful, county officials would not have been able to collect back taxes from the new owner. "If it changes ownership, we’ve lost it," Ross said. "We can’t go back." The Gipes plan to contest the assessor’s ruling, appealing to the Oregon Department of Revenue, if necessary. In the meantime, they’ve contacted elected officials, including Jackson County Commissioner Jack Walker and State Sen. Alan Bates of Ashland. Walker said he’d be reluctant to second-guess the decision of another county official such as Ross. Bates, however, said that while he hadn’t yet reviewed the particulars of the Gipes’ situation, it struck him as unfair. "If you start going back five years, it’s going to be very difficult, especially for elderly people on fixed incomes," Bates said. "On the face of it, right now, I’d support changing the law. If we make the mistake, then we should change it and go forward from there." Indeed, the law has been changed before, a spokeswoman for the Department of Revenue said. The limit on collecting back taxes has been five years for some time. But taxpayers used to have as many years to pay the money as it took assessors to detect it. Now, at least one-third of the total is due within a year to avoid interest or penalties. In the end, Charles Gipe figures he’ll have to pay the extra taxes. If he doesn’t, he’ll eventually face a lien against his house — and the possibility of foreclosure. "If I have to pay it, you know when it will be," Charles Gipe said. "Nov. 16, 2006. Not a second earlier." It’s the principle, however, that bothers the retired engineer the most. He said county officials ought to take responsibility for their own mistakes, especially when it costs people money. "Fortunately, we can make that payment," Gipe said. "How about older people who can’t?" Reach reporter JoNel Aleccia at 776-4465, or e-mail Assessment errors come due ">[email protected] . Mail Tribune Home | Local News | Sports | Business | Obituaries | Life | Opinion AP News | Archives | Site Map | Community | Classified Copyright © 1997-2005 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. 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