Polk County has launched an “Equitable Property Value Hub” website to ensure fair and transparent property appraisals for local property owners.
Polk County GIS Coordinator Rick Thompson said the new site is dedicated to parcel information in Polk County. “Everything that is in this hub has to deal with parcels one way or another,” said Thompson. “It’s a way to go to one location to get access without having to go into the different offices. You can do it from home with an easy access way to search records.”
The site (Equitable Property Value | Polk County, Minnesota (arcgis.com)) makes it easy for property owners and others in the county to quickly find out how the county appraises properties, view statistics on property valuation, calculate homestead tax, start an appeal concerning a property appraisal and explore several web apps that help answer questions about properties in Polk County. The hub features a property information dashboard, a tax liability calculator, several property applications, and the ability to appeal the county appraisal.
Thompson said the apps are easy to use and specific, so you don’t need to mess with several options to get the answer you need. “The apps basically have one purpose,” said Thompson. “For instance, in My Tax Distribution, when you click on a parcel, it will list how your tax dollars are distributed throughout the county, whether it be the county, school district, watersheds, cities. It will just show you the breakdown. That’s the extent of that app. They aren’t complicated. When you go into an app, you’ll have a specific reason for click on that app. That’s the only information you’re going to get. You don’t have to worry about clicking on or off different things.”
The hub pulls information split between offices in different county buildings to one always accessible online location said, Thompson. “We have different departments in different buildings throughout the City of Crookston,” said Thompson. “Instead of running from one to the other and chasing around trying to find the information, you’ll have one spot and can get access to that information right away. The other is it’s not five-days-a-week, eight-hours-a-day you can get at this stuff. It’s seven-days-a-week, 24 hours-a-day, 365 days-a-year, so you don’t have to wait for the county offices to be open to get this information. And everything in our system is updated nightly, so anything put in the tax system the previous day will be on the site the next day.”
The apps include:
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- Tax Parcel Viewer – access property tax and assessment information
- My Tax Distribution – learn how property taxes are distributed in the community.
- Sales Comp Finder – find comparable property sales and related property information.
- Floodplain Inquiry – locate parcels impacted by FEMA floodplain boundaries.
- Sales Search – look up traditional sales and related property information.
- Tax Sales – locate tax reverted properties sold at auction and over the counter.
The Equitable Property Value Hub forms an extension of Polk County’s Hub (Polk County Hub (arcgis.com)), where resources on elections, COVID-19, public safety, land records, and public works are shared in an easy-to-use, mobile-friendly environment based on interactive web maps and location technology.
