SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) — Another county official has said the public may not completely understand how a new property tax bill could impact them.
Karla Goossen, the director of equalization for Lincoln County, said at Tuesday’s meeting that Senate Bill 216 which becomes law on July 1, applies a 3% cap on growth for all assessed property value for owner-occupied homes, not individual homes. The overall cap applies to 2027 through 2031.
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“The cap for this is for the whole owner-occupied, I’m gonna say bucket, it’s not per parcel. And we can increase property values by more than 3% if there is new improvements,” Goossen said.
Goossen referred to a March 13 KELOLAND News story that quoted real estate representatives saying that SB216 made it an ideal time to make home improvements or buy a home because there was a new cap of 3% on assessed values for individual owner occupied homes.
“SB216 still gives the authority to assess it,” Goossen said. “I want to get that out there to the public.”
Even if a home owner did not make improvements to the property, there is still a chance the values will increase, even by more than 3%, Goossen said.
Goossen had a message at her county board meeting that was similar to a message shared by Chris Lilla, the equalization director for Minnehaha County at the March 18 county board meeting.
As Goossen said, Lilla also said the SB216 is not 3% cap on any individual property.
“It’s completely misleading,” Lilla said of believing or sharing that the 3% cap applies to individual owner-occupied homes.
“If your neighborhood market needs to go up 10%, your value is going to go up 10%. It’s only at the total value change for budgeting and levy establishment,” Lilla said.
Goossen said at Tuesday’s Lincoln County board meeting that SB216 also refers to following another state law that says if the assessed values fall below 85% of the median value for those properties, the assessments must be adjusted.
“I have to raise it. It’s not a 3% cap,” Goossen said.
SB216 reads “assessed value may not increase more than three percent over the total assessed value of all property in the county with an owner-occupied single-family dwelling classification in the prior year, except as otherwise provided in this section.”
The details of how SB216 will impact overall owner-occupied value growth and the budget of the county, cities and school districts are uncertain.
“There’s a lot of ‘I don’t knows,'” Goossen said.
One possibility is shifting tax values to commercial or other properties. Lilla said at the March 18 Minnehaha County meeting that “If the owner-occupied happened to be 3.5%. They’re gonna have to take 0.5% of that away and put it on the non-owner occupied.”
Minnehaha County Commissioner Joe Kippley said on March 18 he was disappointed with the level of detail from the legislature on SB216.
“Not enough homework was done on actually gaming out how it would be implemented,” Kippley said. “I just think we’re gonna be left holding the bag here at the county to do our math and show our work to our constituents of what they really save or if it just gets shifted around, for the next 5-year period.”
