Newest PTABOA member outlines his concerns before commissioners as assessor responds to allegations
By JESSICA BRICKER
Wells County Assessor Kelly Herman said Monday she was following the recommendation of the president of the county’s property tax assessment board of appeals when it came time to update five property owners’ assessments following a January hearing.
Allegations of misconduct have been reported against Herman and two members of the PTABOA by the third and newest PTABOA member, Chandler Gerber.
Gerber alleges Herman falsified documents and overrode the board’s January decisions resulting in increased property tax assessments for multiple property owners.
“I don’t have the power to do that,” Herman told The News-Banner after the meeting. “I did what the president of the PTABOA instructed me to do.”
To the commissioners Monday morning and to The News-Banner separately last week, Gerber said the motions that he made during the January PTABOA meeting and that were approved by his fellow board members were not enforced by Herman.
That, however, cannot be verified because the meeting was not recorded so no audio was available. Also, the minutes provided to Gerber and affected Bluffton businessman Brandon Harnish are apparently incomplete.
The minutes only reflect part of Gerber’s motions, which left room for manipulation of the assessment rate, Gerber argued.
On Monday, Herman said she had an equipment failure, which is why the meeting did not record. She has since purchased a new computer to replace a 10-year-old one and future recordings will be backed up.
She said she voiced concerns on the January meeting day to Affolder that the meeting didn’t properly record. Once it was pulled up on her computer, she said she wasn’t able to find a recording.
When a copy of the minutes were requested by Gerber, Herman said they were unapproved minutes that she didn’t have completely finished when they were asked for.
Herman is attempting to convene the PTABOA next week (see related story) to review the contested matter after Gerber’s fellow board members Larry McChessney and Judy Affolder, the PTABOA president, have reportedly expressed confusion over what action was taken by them last month.
Gerber told the commissioners Monday he was following the law as confirmed by Herman during the PTABOA meeting when he made the motions to use the lowest of the methods for assessment, basing the assessment on replacement costs.
Per Gerber and Harnish, who attended the PTABOA meeting as an appellate, the result of Gerber’s approved motions should have been a lowered assessed value for five self-storage facilities in the county since the assessed value rate was lowered from $24 a square foot to $22.
Instead, the values were increased, as confirmed on documents provided to The News-Banner. The market value — a multiplier — used at one point for the Harnish business was 2.4, not 1 as Gerber said he made a motion for.
When Gerber inquired about the resulting increases, he was told by Herman that the PTABOA needed to meet again to clarify the matter.
Herman said she was told by a representative of the state’s Department of Local Government Finance that if there was a misunderstanding of what was done, the best thing to do was to redo it.
“When I tried to do that, I got a lot of backlash,” she said of correcting the assessments.
She also said when the board members disagree on what was decided during a meeting, she has to go with what the PTABOA president says. That’s why she consulted with Affolder after the last meeting.
However, Gerber has argued that the confusion was sowed by Herman herself after the last PTABOA meeting.
“There was no confusion,” Gerber told the commissioners Monday. “The confusion was over the enforcement of the motions.”
Once the county’s Beacon website was modified with a lower assessment, Gerber believed the matter was resolved.
Then last week, he was contacted about a Feb. 14 PTABOA meeting to reexamine the board’s January actions. At that meeting, Herman is to outline four options for the board to consider. That’s not even allowed, Gerber said.
“(That) is totally ridiculous and not appropriate at all for an independent board to be put in that position,” Gerber said.
Herman said Monday she plans to give the board members options at the upcoming meeting because she “was given no value to even say is this what was wanted.”
She said she felt like this was a matter that could have easily been resolved among the board members, adding she felt that was the most professional route to take. She is obligated to sign off on what the board president wants, she said.
“I’m not doing anything wrong or anything illegal or whatever,” she said. “I’m just doing my job.”
At Monday’s meeting of the commissioners, Gerber argued that if the next week’s meeting of the PTABOA is to be held with the same board members and the same assessor, the property owners who spent the past year appealing their assessments would not have a fair chance of winning — even though they technically already should have won based on his approved motions.
This is not how the government should operate, he said.
“I feel like the taxpayers are not getting a fair shake at all,” he told the commissioners. “In fact, we’ve proven that if the taxpayers by chance win an appeal, they’re actually not going to win and then, in an example of a couple of them, they’re actually going to be punished by getting higher appraisals yet than what they went into the meeting for, just as an extra kick in the shin on the way out.”
jessica@news-banner.com
