Boone County voters will have their pick of a well-traveled accountant and an experienced lawyer to be the next Property Valuation Administrator, replacing current administrator Cindy Martin.
Although Martin has been in the position for the last 15 years and is not seeking reelection, she has endorsed one of the candidates, Jonathan Brown.
Brown is a civil engineer, licensed land surveyor and lawyer. He specializes in property law and has worked part-time in Martin’s department. He said the experience has allowed him to understand the job is taking on by running for property valuation administrator (PVA).
“I’m the only candidate that has experience working directly in the office and I think that’s going to be extremely important, moving forward so that there can be a seamless transition,” Brown said.
Brown is running in the 2022 Boone County Republican Primary against candidate Jared Bethel.
Bethel is also originally from the Northern Kentucky region, but he spent much of his upbringing traveling with his military family. He graduated high school in Hawaii, worked for the U.S. Embassy in Australia, all before finally returning to the region to put down roots. Bethel now resides in Boone County and feels his experiences have prepared him to take on the PVA position.
“I think the PVA office is ideal for an accountant,” he said. “It has a lot to do with numbers, metrics and statistics, and it’s about the property values and making sure that they’re valued correctly and responsibly. You know, it’s important to me that no business or individual is treated unfairly. I mean, I believe fully believe that everyone should be treated equally.”
Judge/Executive Gary Moore recently told the Fiscal Court that some property owners have received letters informing them that their values have increased. The PVA office is locally elected, but is in an office of the state, meaning the county can’t increase the property tax rate and instruct the PVA to increase property values to yield higher revenues.
A priority for Brown as PVA would be to provide communication as early as possible to landowners about their property values. He said Kentucky law requires property owners to receive those letters in the mail with a few weeks to make an appeal if they think there is a mistake, which neighboring counties are experiencing now.
Both Kenton and Campbell county residents have seen increases in their property values as high as 50%. Kenton County residents recently received an extension on their appeal deadline.
Brown said it’s his goal as a candidate to provide notice earlier than the legal requirements to give residents as much time as possible to appeal.
“I know that one of the things that the current PVA office has done that I’m planning to continue is to try and send out those notices about reassessments as early as possible,” Brown said. “Technically, the law says they don’t have to get sent out until just a couple of weeks ahead of the deadline to appeal and people only have a few weeks to figure out whether they want to appeal.”
Brown also said technology can be a benefit to the office’s transparency to the public, and something he thinks Martin’s office has “been on the forefront of that we plan to continue.”
Bethel said property owners aren’t the only residents on his mind. He said inflation and property value increases will impact renters, too.
“Property values are going up and up … My concern is is that wages aren’t doubling but your property values are, and how do you deal with that?” Bethel said. “Obviously, this also goes into rent. If you rent an apartment, that owner is experiencing the same burden and obviously passing it on to their renters as well. So you know, I’m really concerned that property taxes are going to rise too fast.”
He predicted the market will correct and “come back down,” but not all the way.
“I don’t think it’ll come back down a whole lot, but I think it will come back down some and I think it’s important to be very conservative on raising property values on homeowners because it’s really easy to raise it. It’s harder to lower it,” Bethel said.
Early voting in Boone County is ongoing. The last day to vote in Boone County will be Primary Election Day on Tuesday, May 17.
