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| Ken Yazel |
Yes, Who is the Assessor Matters
Tulsa was wracked by a scandal last week after the Tulsa County Assessors Office failed to collect tens of thousands of property tax dollars according to a Tulsa World report. Some property remained undervalued by twice the actual value including shopping centers with the loss at around $100,000 per year. Also missed were tax payments to the sinking fund levies. Assessor Ken Yazel tried to avoid the scandal, claiming they had 80 employees and 267,000 accounts and that it was "human error".
The shopping center that had been under-appraised by twice the actual value was blamed on a resigning appraiser and a re organization of the department. A Denver based company had purchased the property for $31.8 million dollars but Assessor Ken Yazel kept the property at the original $13.3 million dollar value, completely ignoring the recent sale for over two years. The property owner saved around $170.000 per year thanks to that special treatment. Once called out, Yazel still refused to raise the property appraised value to the actual sale price, pegging the property at $19.8 million dollars.
But Yazel had one more trick up his sleeve to protect the property owner. His department missed the one year window to tax the property at the $19.8 million dollar valuation, causing the property to be protected by the state cap of 5% per year. The result is that next year's taxes will be based on no more than $14 million dollars, less than half of the actual sale price.
This will cost Jenks schools around $100,000 per year and the county loses twice that. And the state cap on raising valuations, designed to protect homeowners or business owners from sudden raises in property valuations doesn't protect properties as they are sold; the new owners are supposed to have the taxes reset at market values.
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| John Wright |
Current Assessor Ken Yazel is backing his chief deputy John Wright to take over and be elected but Yazel hasn't actually ran the Assessors office for about two years, leave Wright to run the office so the massive tax loss to the schools was done on John Wright's watch. The owners of the corporation out of Denver that owns the shopping center are both major Republican donors, leaving open the possibility of donor money influencing the enforcement of tax law.
The story boils down to John Wright being tainted by the entire shameful scandal. And yet he is running for office. Byron Burkie, who worked for three decades for the former Democratic Assessor, is alleged to be the source of the leak that exposed. Burkie has a niece that works in the Assessors office is a possible source of the leak. Despite his three decade long association and employment with the Democrats Burkie is running as a Republican. Donor show that all of the donations Burkie has made are Democrats, not a single Republican according to our source. Plus Burkie has voted in every single Democratic Primary.
Long time Tea Party activist Darren Gantz is running against both men. The vote will be on June 26th.
