Official sheds light on tax rollback

SANDPOINT — A well-orchestrated county commissioners' meeting, several inaccurate statements and an altered email later, the story of Tuesday's timberland tax rollback has taken on new dimension.

Bonner County Assessor Jerry Clemens said this year's countywide increase in timberland values resulted from a misunderstanding with Rod Brevig, forest tax administrator for the state of Idaho. New information calls that statement into question.

"Of course, we had been in discussions with them (Bonner County assessors) and had expressed a need to look at classifications and see where they were," Brevig said. "It’s normal to perform those kinds of things. And in our discussions, it was suggested that things needed to be verified with property owners before (any change) was implemented."

The normal procedure for instituting a general change in assessed timberland values would be going out and doing fieldwork, contacting and working with the affected landowners, and then making the appropriate valuation changes, according to Brevig. However, that is not what took place in the Bonner County.

"The changes were done without the work to justify the changes," he said.

"There is a right way to do it. We’ve suggested we need to progress in an orderly way. Field work and working with landowner.”

At a Forest Owners Association gathering last weekend in Orofino, several attendees expressed their concerns to Brevig about the tax hike in Bonner County. 

"We encouraged the landowners to file their appeals and find out what had happened," he said.

"Our office called the commission on Monday and suggested they do the rollback because the (assessor's) staff had raised values without our suggestion." Brevig said.

Commissioner Cary Kelly contacted the media Monday afternoon to apprise them of the rollback plan. The commission announced the rollback at 10:30 a.m. the following day.

Clemens was present at the meeting.

"The state tax commission agrees that timber values are too low,” he said.

"Bring us something in writing to back that up," said Kelly.

Another point of contention between the state tax board and the Bonner County Assessors' office is an altered email. A staff member at the assessor's office edited an email from Brevig before sending it on a landowner.

"(They were) trying to shift the blame. This is the first time I've run into this. I've worked with Bonner County for years," Brevig said.

Clemens offered a different interpretation of the situation.

“It wasn’t altered. She (the staff member) told him (Brevig) that she was only going to forward what applied," he said.

When asked whether he thought that grading all Bonner County timberland at the best quality level and thus the highest taxable rate would be likely under normal circumstances, Brevig answered unequivocally.

"Not at all. The reason we have different classes of forest land is because not all timberland is the same,” Brevig added.

“Most of the land is probably correctly valued (prior to the assessor's change). This didn't need to happen at all."

He expressed his concern that such incidents undermines trust.

"It interferes with the public's confidence and the work to be done,” said Brevig. “It should be done in a way that makes people feel they are paying their fair share.”

"It is a matter of public security and knowing the assessment process is fair."