Key Responsibilities

•Ensuring Uniformity: The department reviews local assessment rolls to correct over- or under-assessments between townships and cities.

•Sales/Appraisal Studies: Under guidelines established by the State Tax Commission, they conduct annual studies of property transfers (sales studies) and appraisals to determine the actual market value of property classes. 

•Equalized Value Calculation: They calculate the county equalized value for each class of property to ensure fairness.

•Compliance: The department is also responsible for calculating millage rollback fractions required by law (Headlee, Truth in Assessing, Truth in County Equalization and Truth in Taxation) from all Taxing Authorities within the County such as:
      o Colleges, K-12 schools, Intermediate schools
      o County, townships, villages, city and district libraries

Following this process, the department compiles all millage to be levied within the County and submits the apportionment report to the County Board for their  examination and approval and submits a copy to the State Tax Commission.

•Record Maintenance: The department maintains the County database, updates property descriptions, processes parcel reconfiguration applications, and enters recorded deeds.
      oThe Equalization Department also coordinates maintenance of the County GIS map system.

•Liaison Duties: They act as a liaison between the County Board of Commissioners, the State Tax Commission, the local units of government, and the public.