Altered emails raise questions

SANDPOINT — A staff member at the Bonner County Assessor’s office edited several emails from an Idaho state tax official before forwarding them to taxpayers. 

Last week, Bonner County commissioners nixed a blanket increase in timberland values to the highest taxable category throughout the county, rolling back those elevated values to their 2015 levels pending further review. The increase had recently been put into effect by the Bonner County Assessor’s office.

The rollback was prompted by a call from Ron Brevig, forest tax administrator for the state of Idaho, who was alerted to the assessor's precipitous actions by some of the county's larger forest landowners. Brevig contacted the commissioners, who acted almost immediately.

Assessor Jerry Clemons initially indicated that Brevig and his organization had mandated the change.

“The state tax commission agrees that timber values are too low,” he told Cary Kelly, Bonner County commissioner.

Further investigation revealed that Clemons’ own staff members had moved forward with the increase in spite of Brevig's advice.

Bonnie Berscheid, lead residential appraiser for the Bonner County Assessor, and colleague, Al Ribeiro, had gone forward with the valuation increase, sidestepping the standard procedure for such readjustments. Typically, according to Brevig, assessors carry out the necessary field work, examine aerial photos and speak with the property owners before making any change.

In a Feb. 8 email to Berscheid, Brevig reiterated that any increases in Bonner County timberland values should take place over five years’ time and should follow the proper process. 

“When we visited in your office on Nov. 19, we had discussed updating the productivity classes in conjunction with the revisions occurring with the 20 percent of the county done each year to implement the five-year plan,” Brevik wrote Berscheid.

“Hmmm 5 year reviews? Could you help me out with what that is and what I should be doing with it?” said Berscheid in a return email. “Al and I are working on changing our soil types to Type 1 (highest taxable value) as you instructed the last time you visited.”

According to the dates of the email exchange, Berscheid was fully apprised by Brevig as of Feb. 8 that she was skirting procedural standards in the way she was revaluing the properties, but she forged ahead anyway. Clemons claimed he was unaware of this.

“They told me they were following Rod Brevig’s suggestions,” Clemons said, but added he did not speak with Brevig to verify this.

Later, in mid- to late June, as timber owners began questioning the abrupt raise in their property values, Berscheid forwarded Brevig’s February emails to Ron Behimer of JD Lumber upon Behimer’s request.

“I was trying to figure out exactly why the county had chosen to up the productivity rating (of JD Lumber properties) to T-1, or ‘good.’ In the process, Bonnie had mentioned it was a directive from the state. I said, ‘Do you have the correspondence to show that?’ and she handed me an email,” Behimer said.

However, the emails Berscheid provided JD Lumber officials were not Brevig's original messages.

A comparison of the original documents to those Berscheid forwarded reveals the removal of all verbiage showing Bonner County had acted against Brevig’s advice. For example, the following passage from Brevig was deleted: 

“As the soil types are updated, we will need to examine these changes by reviewing aerial photography and perform field verification before implementation. The changes that are made this year (2016) need to be reviewed and field verified during this field season before notifications would go out to landowners the following year (in 2017). By doing 20 percent per year, it allows time to train, both you and Al are new to this process ... I would recommend a process of notification to landowners whose productivity classifications will be changed so we can work with them as needed to identify needs for training for them also.”

The following section also was removed from Berscheid’s email to Brevig when she gave it to Behimer:

“I guess Al and I both misunderstood that you wanted to perform field verifications before implementing the changes. We both understood that we were to change to good on all timber parcels.”

The emails convinced Behimer that the appraiser's blanket reassessments were in accordance with instructions from her superiors.

“I was given to understand that it was a directive from the state to make this conversion to T-1 for timberland. The very last sentence in this thing got Bonnie out from any sort of culpability, I hope. It said to the effect that ‘we will do as you’ve (Brevig) directed and change everything to T-1.’ The only interpretation I could make from the email — it looked to me like a tax grab,” said Behimer. “It didn't make any sense to me because the whole purpose of this program (the timberland tax break) was to encourage people to raise timber.”

When asked on what basis his appraisal staff elevated timber property values across the board, Clemons said they figured valuation according to a chart they had in the office.

As a point of comparison, the county values poor quality timberland under the Land Productivity tax option at $128 per acre while good quality land has an assessed value of $518 per acre. Those who own large blocks of forested acreage previously rated lower "poor" or "fair" would pay significantly more in taxes for years to come if all values were upgraded to Type 1.

Berscheid could not be reached for comment.