By Tracy Overstreet
tracy.overstreet@theindependent.com

Hall County Assessor Jan Pelland reported the increase during a Hall County board meeting Tuesday.

She said the increase is one of several on select properties in Hall County that statistics showed had fallen below market value.

"On residential, for the first time since our countywide reappraisal in 2005, we fell below the minimum," Pelland told the county board. "We were not going to pass inspection this year."

The Nebraska Tax Equalization and Review Commission requires residential properties to have a minimum value of 92 percent of market value. Collectively, Hall County's residential property came in at 91 percent, she said.

Instead of issuing an increase on every house in Hall County, Pelland decided to conduct a study to determine which residential properties may be coming in below value.

"The city of Wood River came in extremely low they have had a very good market there," Pelland said. "What I tracked is that two-thirds of the sales that were in Wood River were homes 1970 or older, so we did a 15-percent increase on all homes built before 1970 in Wood River."

The increase is on the structure only, not the land in Wood River, Pelland said.

"The other big problem that we had is the city of Grand Island. It carries the majority of the sales in the county and has a big effect on these ratios," she told supervisors.

"We fine-tuned it further down than Grand Island and could definitely see there were two pockets that were causing the most problem," she said.

"The two pockets were properties built from 1940 to 1949 and the properties built between 1950 and 1959," she said.

"They made up a fifth or a good 20 percent of the sales in Grand Island for the last two years and were coming in at 85 percent."

Pelland's change was a 10-percent increase on those homes. She estimated about 2,800 Grand Island homes were impacted.

Hall County board Chairman Bud Jeffries expressed concern about increasing those select Grand Island residences. He worried those homeowners may be on fixed incomes and "can afford it the least."

A segment of agricultural property also came in below the minimum allowed assessment.

Through tracking, Pelland narrowed it to vacant agricultural land, so she did a 10-percent increase on all dryland crop and grassland countywide.

"That should bring us up over the minimum, which is now 69 percent of market," for ag land, Pelland said

She's also updating agricultural records based on new 2006 aerial photos that show irrigation pivots some of which hadn't been reported to her office.

Updates to the Indianhead subdivision and the Fireside/West Roads subdivision just south of Indianhead Golf Course on Husker Highway were also done, Pelland said.

With the changes in residential and agricultural land values, plus updates on commercial values due to new construction and remodeling, Pelland said about 8,000 valuation change notices will be mailed out May 30.

Property owners may file protests on the values in June.

Formal protests before the county board of equalization will be heard from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. July 15, from 3 to 8 p.m. July 16 and from 3 to 7 p.m. July 17.

For the record

In other action Tuesday, the county board:

* Removed about $7,000 of tax obligation that had been previously billed on property owned by the Environmental Protection Agency at Fourth and Eddy. The federally owned property should have been tax-exempt.

* Heard a request from Health and Human Services Supervisor June Oliphant to update a 1986 contract outlining general assistance guidelines for the county. She said qualifying income levels, rent assistance payments and county burial costs should be increased. County board Chairman Bud Jeffries said he will appoint a committee and a chairman. Funeral home owners Dan Naranjo and Derek Apfel were at the meeting and will be on the committee, as well as representatives of the Grand Island City Cemetery and West Lawn Memorial Cemetery, Jeffries said. Naranjo said a meeting of all funeral directors and cemetery superintendents could be called and a proposal prepared to return to the county.

* Supported LB1068 to create a classification for remote residential roads. Hall County believes the designation could aid in opening a road to isolated lands owned by the Kroeger family south of Interstate 80 and west of South Locust Street.

* Awarded gravel contracts to Hooker Brothers, $26,453, for the Lake/Prairie Creek/Center project; Consolidate Concrete, $42,330, for the Mayfield/Harrison/Wood River project; Consolidated Concrete, $34,445, for the Martin/South Platte/Doniphan project.