Burleigh County is beginning its tax assessment of Lincoln residential properties, sending out a number of letters to homeowners whose houses it wants to get into.

Burleigh Assessor Sue Finneman met with the Lincoln City Council at Thursday's meeting to provide an update on the county's role in taking on assessing for the city located just southeast of Bismarck.

Burleigh and Lincoln entered into a three-year contract for tax assessment services at the beginning of this month. Burleigh recently decided to go with a computerized tax assessment process, which is expected to greatly enhance equalization efforts.

"We hope to have Lincoln's information ready to send into Vanguard (the company supplying the tax assessing software) after your equalization meeting in April," Finneman told the council.

The county has questions on assessments for about 160 homes in Lincoln and has sent out about 85 letters to property owners indicating a need to get inside their homes for review. When filling out assessment cards, information such as square footage, number of garages, finished basements and number of rooms is used for determining property value.

The assessments look at building permits, but property owners don't always get permits for improvements. Lincoln ordinances allow for the building inspector or someone with delegated authority to enter homes and look at properties on behalf of the city.

With limited staff and time, Finneman isn't sure whether her staff will be able to get to all the homes on their list but will try to do as many as possible before April. For those properties that have either a 15 percent or $3,000 increase in value, owners must be notified 10 days prior to the equalization meeting, in case they want to file a protest.

Council member Kathy Schneibel said the previous tax assessor ran into problems getting access to homes. There is a list of 50 or 60 homes where property owners either denied access or made it difficult to make arrangements for a review. Finneman said she hadn't had any problems so far in the process, but only a few properties have been reviewed.

It was discussed that those property owners avoiding an assessment may have made improvements increasing the value of their property. By keeping that information from the tax assessor, they save money come tax time.

When determining property value, the assessor looks at sales of similar properties in the same market. To do this accurately, the assessor needs to know what features a home has inside and out, comparing apples to apples.

Council member Jon Wagner and Mayor Glenn Christmann suggested that, should a property owner not allow admittance to a home, that the tax assessor should assume the inside is completely finished and be charged accordingly.

"In 2005, there were 50 or 60 people that wouldn't let the assessor in," Schneibel said. "I looked at the values of those homes, and they appeared extremely low."

"So far people have been very good at letting us in," Finneman replied. "We'll do what we can to analyze those homes we can't get into. We appreciate the data the city has provided so far. The data that's been collected the past few years has been really good to start this process."

Christmann added that the council will provide any help it can in getting the assessor access to homes.

Finneman noted that it will be difficult to get to all the properties on the list, but they would attempt to get to as many as possible. While assessment is a year-round process, according to Finneman, this time of year tends to be the busiest, she added.

The county also is handling assessment for the unorganized townships of Fort Rice, Lincoln, Burnt Creek and River View. It's working with the organized townships of Apple Creek, Hay Creek and Gibbs which are looking to send their information so it can be added to the Vanguard software.

(Reach reporter Gordon Weixel at 250-8255 or gordon.weixel@;bismarcktribune.com.)