The Summit County commissioners act as the county’s board of equalization, and at a board meeting Tuesday, Aug. 5, they approved final decisions on 2025 property value appeals.

The board sees secondary appeals, meaning an owner appealed their property’s value to the assessor, received a response, still disagreed and appealed the assessor’s decision again. Deputy clerk Caitlin Johnson said 234 appeals reached the board this year.

Most of those appeals did not get a hearing because they “came to a stipulation agreement with the assessor’s office, withdrew their petition or requested an administrative denial,” Johnson said. 

Six hearing officers appointed by the board heard 108 appeal cases between July 21 and Aug. 1. At least two officers, but usually three, were present for each hearing, where the assessor’s office and petitioner would present their recommended values.

The officers recommended upholding the assessor’s value in 50 cases, upholding the petitioner’s value in six and adopting a value suggested by the officers in 52 cases.

The commissioners, acting as the board of equalization, accepted all but three of the officers’ recommendations, upholding the assessor’s value in two cases where the officers had suggested a value and in one case where they had suggested upholding the petitioner’s value.

Commissioner Tamara Pogue asked if owners of mining claims who did not appeal their valuations could still see a change in property value, as several mining claims that did appeal saw decreases in their valuations.

“I was really struck by the referees’ decreases in mining claims in particular,” Pogue said. “There were some staggering differences there, and there were a number of them.”

Twenty mining claim value appeals received a change in their valuations from the board, and 11 received no change. Every adjustment decreased the value, with changes ranging from $1,140 to $618,200. The median change was a $42,000, or 30%, decrease.

County staff told Pogue that land owners who did not appeal their 2025 valuations can no longer petition for a change, even if their land falls within a classification that saw a large number of approved appeals.

Appeals handled by assessor

At a July 15 board of equalization meeting, assessor Lisa Eurich told the commissioners about all the appeals her office received. Out of 2,416 appeals in 2025, the assessor made 1,244 adjustments and denied 481. Petitioners withdrew 691 appeals.

Pogue asked if the proportion of adjustments to total appeals was higher in 2025 than it had been historically. Eurich said she noticed a high percentage of appeals getting adjusted, with over 70% of appeals that were not withdrawn receiving adjustments.

Many adjustments were small, Eurich said, around $10,000 to $20,000.

“Just enough to piss them off,” Eurich said.

Eurich said a lot of vacant land like mining claims and private open space land saw large increases in value as compared to years past. Some vacant land that has been valued at a few hundred dollars, she said, was valued at a few thousand dollars this year.

“(The) majority of (board of equalization) appeals right now is vacant land,” Eurich said. “Historically, they have been artificially low, in my opinion, and we have not been able to recreate the results of the past appraiser.”

The assessor’s office did “the best we could” with the data it had, Eurich said, and got vacant land values higher than previous years. She said the values were “still quite low” compared to other residential property in the county, though.

Pogue expressed concern with the vacant land value increases that some property owners may not have the financial means to cover the increased property taxes that would result. She asked Eurich if she was concerned as well, or if she saw the increases as a “natural factor of our market.”

“I do think there had to be a correction,” Eurich said. “Land is a finite resource, and we’re running out of it.”

Eurich said there were few sales of mining claims and private open spaces in Summit County during the time period the assessors took into account. The office used data from neighboring counties as well as data outside market sales, like the cost of transferring development rights, Eurich said.

“When we’re talking about residential vacant land … we like to use market sales, and we have plenty of those for residential vacant land,” Eurich said. “Other vacant land, like private open space, mining claims, things like that, we have to do other outside analyses.”