Truth-In-Taxation statements began arriving at Crookston residences and businesses late last week. Included in those statements are increases in property valuation for many buildings in Crookston.
The most significant increase is in residential property valuations. Polk County Assessor Mark Landsverk said residential properties in Crookston increased approximately 7-10 percent in value over the last year. “Residential did go up some last year,” said Landsverk. “In general, it probably went up around 7-10 percent on the residential. Commercial went up about 5 percent. Industrial, same thing. The downtown commercial stuff stayed the same, and the Hotel/Motel stayed about the same as well for the City of Crookston.”
The change in property valuation is mostly due to property sales within the City of Crookston, explained Landsverk. “It is mainly due to sales from the prior year,” said Landsverk. “We do the sales study each year, and the sales study year goes from October of one year through September of the next year. So, for the property tax increases that you may be seeing in the Truth-In-Taxation notices, those sales were from the period of time from October 2018 up until September 2019.”
Landsverk said determining the sales ratio helps set property values and explained how that ratio is established. “Last year in Crookston, we had 65 residential sales,” said Landsverk. “When we’re doing our sales study, we compare the values we have from the prior year, so if a property was valued at $90,000, we compare our value to what the property was sold at. So, say something was sold at $100,000, and we had it valued at $90,000. That would be a sales ratio of 90 percent.”
According to Landsverk, the assessor’s office must meet state guidelines for property valuations using the sales study and sales ratio. “In Minnesota, we have to value between 90-105 percent,” said Landsverk. “Let’s go back to that 90 percent sales ratio on the one parcel. Say out of all 65 properties that sold in the City of Crookston, that was the median, that means we are 10 percent low on our valuations. For the 2019 sales study, that’s pretty much exactly what happened. We had 65 sales, and the median was at 89 percent. That shows that we needed to bump up our values on residential properties in the town of Crookston. So, that’s what we did. We bumped it up about 10 percent. Not necessarily all of them would be 10 percent, but that’s kind of what we were looking at and trying to get too. Not necessarily right at 100 percent; if we can get to 98 percent, that’s fine too.”
The goal said Landsverk is to be between 95-100 percent. Landsverk also said it shows a good year for property sales in Crookston. “The market from open market type sales, the type that would be listed in a realtor’s office, sold for about 10 percent more than what we had them valued for,” said Landsverk. “Because of that, we had to bump up our valuations in Crookston.”
Additionally, the property tax levies also increased with additional special assessments and an increase in the preliminary levies from the County, City of Crookston, and Crookston School District. The School District’s preliminary levy was 3.5 percent, Polk County’s was 4.9 percent, and the City of Crookston’s was 6 percent. The Crookston City Council was notified at its last meeting that the city staff had made cuts to reduce the levy impact to five percent at that time. The Polk County Commissioners have expressed a desire to reduce the county levy to 3-3.5 percent by the end of the year, both of which would reduce the final property tax increase represented in the Truth-In-Taxation statements the were sent out.
The Crookston School District will hold its Truth-In-Taxation hearing on December 14 at 6 p.m. at Crookston High School to review the final levy, and the City of Crookston will hold its hearing at 6:30 p.m. in the Council Chambers at City Hall. The Polk County Commissioner’s Truth-In-Taxation hearing will be held December 15 at 6 p.m. at the Polk County Transfer Station.
