I feel your pain Jeff.

The following letter to the editor was published on 5-18 in the Racine Journal Times.

Funny math?

Today we received our annual real estate assessment. We were assessed $5,000 more than last year. The year before was an $8,000 increase. How is this possible in today’s housing market? Recently The Journal Times reported a five percent decline in median home prices for the first quarter of 2008 in Racine County.

Every year our assessment goes up while home prices decline. I’m starting to wonder if we are being gouged by the tax man. I’d be curious to see what percentage of homes were assessed lower this year than the previous year. The Journal Times should investigate this.

Jeff McCarrier
Racine

Last year I contacted the Mayor of Racine to ask him how my yearly assessment had increased 5.9% in a down market. He was perplexed by my question and asked if I was questioning the integrity of his department. I explained to the Mayor that if the assessments were indeed tied to actual market value as is claimed then assessments should be down, or flat. He failed to see my point.

Yes Mayor Becker, I am questioning the integrity of your department.

Well Jeff, my assessment, like yours, is up again this year. (If only the market was.) I have obtained a fair market assessment of my home and will be protesting my current assessment as it is $20,000 over the fair market value.

If the market continues its downward spiral my guess is the city will continue to increase assessments. As we all know this is not about fair market value this is about increasing taxes.

I wish my Alderman would do something about this.