The Bismarck Board of Equalization met on April 7, 2026, to hear property valuation appeals and approve the 2026 assessment roll. City Assessor Alison presented an overview of the assessing process, statistics on the city's 27,814 parcels, and a 4.52% increase in total market value to $12.077 billion. A public hearing was held where numerous property owners contested their valuations, citing discrepancies between assessed values and market conditions or property condition. The board approved three motions regarding valuation changes and the annual report, with a commitment to report back on follow-up actions.
I'm gonna respect everybody's time. It's April 7th. This is the It's not this meeting, technically. It's a Board of Equalization meeting. We're in the uh Tom Baker room of the city county building or county build city building. And we'll call the meeting order first. So I think Jason, you've got role. Yes, sir. Commissioner Zinker. Here. Commissioner Cleary. Here. Mayor Schmidt. Here. All right. We're in we're in session. Go ahead, Alison, and deliver your report, and then we'll get to the public hearing portion. Great. Well, Mayor and Commissioners, I would like to start the meeting off with a short video about what our office does. So I don't know what is that like. So there's a lot of misunderstanding about the role of assessors and how they affect the property tax that homeowners pay. When someone hears the term assessor, they seem to think of a scary figure reaching for their wallet. Not so. Assessors don't set tax rates. Assessors don't chase tax dollars. An assessor is interested in fairly determining property values, and they take great pride in it. Property tax is determined by a simple formula. Assessors only affect one of these variables, the value. And they do so with incredible accuracy. Assessors aren't tax collectors or even tax setters. They're just fellow taxpayers, and their primary goal is to make everything fair and equitable. Imagine that you're in a restaurant with two friends. One orders a hot dog, one orders a plate of caviar, and you order a steak. The waiter comes to the table with a total bill of 100 dollars, but he doesn't know how much each of you should pay. If everyone paid the same amount, the guy who ordered the caviar might be happy. But what about the guy who ordered the hot dog? Enter assessors. The food is your property. Just like these meals, some people's property is worth more than others. And it's the assessor's job to determine how much each property is worth. That's it. So in the same way the value of these menu items would need to be determined. An assessor places value on properties to ensure fairness and equity. After the assessor determines the value of each property, local governing bodies will set their budgets for the coming year. They set the tax rate in order to produce the dollars needed for their budgets. The value of a property does not affect the amount of property tax needed. The sum total of all those budgets is a set number that has to be divided up among all the property owners. So even if everyone's value was cut in half by the assessors, the tax rate will be raised in order to generate the same amount of tax revenue. The assessors don't determine the taxes you pay, they just determine the values of properties to keep everything as fair and equitable as possible. When you notice a change in your property's assessed value, that change is the result of a never-ending quest for fairness and accuracy.