The Clinton County Government has announced that community members have until June 17 to begin an appeal for
their 2024 assessment payable in 2025 to have the opportunity of a lower payment in 2025.
The deadline is approaching for community members to appeal their assessments with a date set of June 17 to receive the possibility of lowered assessments payable in 2025.
Clinton County residents received their assessment values payable in 2025 toward the end of April, which has sparked conversations regarding the increase in assessments in certain instances and the opportunity to utilize the appeal process to lower the assessment value prior to the end of the year. The conversations quickly erupted after community members received their property tax bills in 2024, which included increases for most of the county.
Paperwork associated with the appeals process must be received by the Clinton County Assessor’s Office by June 17 for consideration, and further exploration into each case may commence throughout the year.
Clinton County Assessor Jada Ray stated that residents seeking to submit an appeal for their assessment should submit the Form 130, which may be obtained at the Assessor’s Office at 170 Courthouse Sq. in Frankfort, through email, through the mail or through the State website. The one-sided form must be completed to officially kick off the Assessor’s Office’s ability to examine a property independently from the assessment area.
“We’ve had several already that we’re working through, and it’s taking a few weeks to go through them and start going through the groupings at a time as they’ve come in,” Ray said. “We start everything over the phone first and start going over the card from there with them.”
Ray commented that the appeal process may be swift and easy for some community members as certain appeals may be resolved immediately if the taxpayer visits the Assessor’s Office and describes the error in the assessment. However, most appeals follow a more formal process for disagreements in value, which is kicked off with a phone call within the first few weeks following the filing of the appeal. The initial portion of the process allows the community to receive the opportunity to further explore solutions, and if an agreement cannot be reached between the Assessor’s Office and the taxpayer during the phone call, the taxpayer may visit the Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals at the Clinton County Courthouse. Taxpayers may also utilize options beyond the local level after completing the initial formal processes, such as appealing to the state level or the tax court.
Ray stated that while the initial form must be completed by June 17, the appeal can be amended to include additional attachments and more information to expedite the initial process.
“We can do attachments to it later,” Ray said. “If they want to schedule a time to actually meet at the property, we can always add to it. As long as we have the front side of that form, that’s good enough to get us started to just get us going.”
Ray encouraged all taxpayers that have received their notice of assessment this year to evaluate the number and think about their own assessment of the value of their property to contemplate whether or not to file an appeal with the Assessor’s Office. Ray issued a reminder that assessments are completed with consideration to large areas, which may impact certain properties in the area that are qualified for an appeal.
“When we do assessments, we have to look at large areas, so, sometimes, one grouping of areas that may have a change may have a few properties within that large area that are right where they should be,” Ray said. “It may put them just over where they’re too high. Based on this current market that we’re in, if you look at your assessment and think you really couldn’t sell it for that much, then that is absolutely one that we should take a look at. Doing the appeal allows us to pull it out of that mass area and look at it individually.”
Ray addressed common concerns among taxpayers who have expressed their worry that submitting an appeal for reassessment may result in an increased property value, but Ray quelled the concerns by stating that the likelihood of an assessment increasing as a result of an appeal is minimal.
“I know some people do worry about us raising it, but that very rarely happens,” Ray said. “Normally that is if for some reason there’s a building or a structure on the property that’s not assessed already. That very rarely happens.”
For more information, contact the Clinton County Assessor’s Office at 765-659-6315 for real estate or 765-659-6305 for personal property.