County assessor reports 81 protests filed, including large KAAPA Ethanol case
The valuation of property in Hamilton County rose by 16.7 percent in 2024, pushing the cumulative total to a record $3.81 billion.
Hamilton County Assessor Pat Sandberg reported this week that total valuations for all taxing subdivisions rose by $546.8 million in the last year alone, which she said is a significant sum in and of itself.
Some of that increase is because of increases in ag land values, Sandberg said, noting that the price for an acre of prime 1A1 irrigated ag land went up from $6,550 to $8,100 earlier this year, a bump of 23.66 percent.
“Plus we also had a lot of new growth this year,” she continued, reporting an increase of $22.59 million countywide. “New homes, new bins, new buildings, whether it be in town or rural residential properties, anything that was built new is considered new growth.”
Another big factor countywide is the rising value of residential properties, which reflects a nationwide trend.
“The housing market is still hot, hot, hot, so we are going to have to work with that,” she said. “Even though the lending rate for funds at the bank are 6-1/2 or 7 percent, whatever they are now, it still seems to me if you could borrow money, people are still buying homes.”
Sandberg pointed out significant new housing construction projects in both the Streeter Subdivision in Aurora and Mabon Subdivision in Phillips, but said much of the construction now going vertical is not reflected in the 2024 total.
“In Nebraska, it’s what was there Jan. 1,” she explained. “They were barely started at BRANDT (an Illinois company building a $20 million Specialty Ag Formulations plant in the Mission Critical Subdivision) and the duplexes and fourplexes out there (in the Streeter Subdivision) were not done. This is just stuff that was completed or partially done as of Jan. 1, 2024.”
Valuation protests
Though Sandberg officially posted the 2024 valuation this week, she said the total could change over time depending on the results of protests filed by property owners with the Hamilton County Board of Equalization. A total of 81 protests were filed this year, up from 32 last year. Nineteen of those were denied, four were withdrawn, leaving 58 that had some level of change, either up or down.
The largest single protest was filed by KAAPA, owner of the Aurora ethanol plant. Sandberg said KAAPA protested valuations at the local plant in 2023, prompting her to make adjustments in 2024.
“The east plant out there is no longer functional and never will be,” she explained. “I have given all of those buildings and structures out there, except the few that they’re still using, a high depreciation because those buildings are just shot. And then some of the things on the working plant I had to take off because they were personal property and not real estate, so I lost about $27 million doing that for 2024.”
Sandberg said KAAPA has filed a protest with the Nebraska Department of Revenue, seeking to have an additional $36 million worth of listings on their personal property tax return be exempt, prompting her to make a decision.
“I never heard back from the state one way or the other, so I took if off because I’d rather have to add value onto that personal property return then to take more off,” she said. “But for right now, with these certified values, we took off that $36 million. I don’t know what the Department of Revenue is going to decide.”
Property owners have until Monday, Aug. 26, she said, to file a protest at the state level, which will be reviewed by the Tax Equalization and Review Commission (TERC). That legal process is time-consuming, she said, as TERC is about 18 months behind with its case reviews.
Now that Sandberg has certified the values, the various political subdivisions will use the data to establish tax levies as part of the budgeting process.