Borough wide property assessment appeals have ended after the Petersburg Borough Assembly acted as a Board of Equalization (BOE)—the board that addressed and finalized the remaining 22 appeals that weren’t settled privately with assessor Mike Renfro.
The BOE accepted the assessors adjusted value to each property that came before it.
There were around 200 appeals overall, the majority of which were settled outside the BOE.
Renfro works for Appraisal Company of Alaska—the company the borough hired to appraise outlying areas. He said his staff heard from many appellants who claimed their appraised property values were too high.
“There were quite a few of them changed,” Renfro said. “The majority of those claims were values that were lowered.”
Before those appeals were made, borough finance staff expected to receive more than $260,000 in additional property taxes, however that figure is now expected be significantly lower.
The borough is still in the process of finalizing that figure.
Renfro has worked on a number of borough formation projects such as Yakutat and Wrangell along with city annexation projects in Nome and Cordova. He said he underestimated the scope of the Petersburg Borough parcels.
“Yakutat was similar in size but there were quite a few less parcels,” Renfro said. “I really underestimated the number of parcels out there (Petersburg Borough) that were improved with cabins etc…”
Reader Comments(0)