There are some assertions in Mr. Pagan’s recent article that need to be clarified.
Jason Pagan, the current Daviess County Deputy Coroner, has announced his candidacy for Property Valuation Administrator.
“In the Spring of 2020, Owensboro was in the middle of the pandemic, and I received notice that my property value had skyrocketed,” he said. “While assessing my property value for tax purposes, I realized my valuation had grown 57% ($172,050) over a 4-year period without any additions or personal improvements made to the home. This seemed out of the ordinary to me until I began doing some research for the county, and I realized that my significant increase was not alone.”
Couple of things. First of all, what I have to say is based on the public records that anyone may access online, or go the PVA office and they will help you find these records.
Second, Mr. Pagan’s wife lives at his address. The deed is in her name. He is not on the deed. So if property tax values increased, they increased on his wife’s property.
The house was purchased in 2009 for $302,000. It was reassessed in 2016, seven years later for $368,900. About 8% over seven years. In 2020 the property was reassessed for $474,050. Mr Pagan protested. As a result his assessment was lowered back to its 2016 level. The reasons he gave are listed on the card.
“-2020 – Most everything in home is dated (1970). 2 bathrooms have issues b/c of the
commodes from 1954 and their plumbing, water in yard when it rains, driveway cracked
and breaking apart.”
He made his case and his assessment was lowered back to the 2016 level. So the valuation increased from 2009 through 2020, a period of 11 years about 20%. On an annual basis this is less than 2%. One source reports Kentucky property values have increased statewide on an average annual basis from 2011 to 2021 about 4.23% per year.
I think his treatment has been more than fair.
Pagan said his next step was education, as he needed to understand how and why those values would have increased to that degree.
“I’ve dedicated the last 2 years to understanding the details of the Property Value Administrator’s
The current PVA has 20 years of experience in the office, a large part of that time spent as the chief operating officer. Ms. Foster earned a bachelor of science degree from Western Kentucky University. So, you be the judge on who is the better qualified person.
Pagan stressed the importance of transparency and fairness
Since transparency is important to Mr. Pagan, I am attaching the public record from the PVA office, obtained online, for you to judge. https://daviesskypva.org/
Written by
Russ Wilkey, Wilkey & Wilson PSC
