The Alaska House on Wednesday passed legislation to bring property assessments into a more fair process.
Rep. Julie Coulombe of Anchorage introduced House Bill 347, a nearly identical companion to Senate Bill 242, introduced in the Senate earlier this legislative session by Sen. Jesse Kiehl of Juneau.
The bill is intended to restore trust in the property assessment process — trust that has been broke in at least Juneau and Haines, where properties were not only given extraordinary assessments, but when at least one property owner challenged the assessment, the assessor made a punishing decision to increase the assessment even more.
“HB 347 is my bill to put more guardrails around property assessments,” Coulombe said in a Facebook post. “We heard an overwhelming amount of testimony about why this bill is needed to protect property owners. I was grateful for support from my colleagues. “You can watch the floor session here:”
Current law allows for assessors to increase assessments on appeal, which has had a chilling impact on the public’s ability to challenge an assessment, as people fear retaliation.
While House Bill 347 still allows for flexibility at the local level, it creates some baseline standards for assessors.
Rep. David Eastman and Rep. Jesse Sumner voted against the bill, which received support from all other members of the House who were present. The bill has bipartisan support, however. Co-sponsors include Representatives Frank Tomaszewski, Mike Prax, Andi Story, Ben Carpenter, George Rauscher, Sara Hannan, Sarah Vance, Andy Josephson, Stanley Wright, Jamie Allard, Mike Cronk, and Dan Saddler.
The bill is now in the Alaska Senate. Senate Bill 242 has been stuck in Senate Community and Regional Affairs Committee since being referred there on Feb. 19. That committee is chaired by hardline leftist Sen. Forrest Dunbar.
