The Office of the State Auditor (Office) today announces a new tool providing taxpayers insights into real property valuation across Utah. The Property Values Tool is the result of taxpayer concerns about inequitable valuations and questions about adequate oversight. Utah property owners are currently receiving their 2023 Notice of Property Valuation and Tax Changes. This new Property Values Tool is timed to help taxpayers review those notices within the larger context of property valuations within their neighborhoods and across their counties.
Property assessment is conducted by Utah’s county assessors. This new tool contains data provided by many of these assessors – those interested in greater transparency for taxpayers. This tool helps taxpayers, policymakers, and regulators better understand property assessment in the State of Utah, allowing interested parties to examine parcel-level data across the State using different metrics. The default map shows the percent change in year-over-year property values.
State Auditor John Dougall stated, “The release of the new Property Values Tool brings greater transparency to Utah taxpayers. The Utah constitution requires uniform and equal treatment of properties in Utah. This tool will help Utahns better monitor that effort. We appreciate the support of the many dedicated and hardworking county assessors and their interest in greater transparency. I’d especially like to thank Chris Stavros, Salt Lake County Assessor, for his excellent feedback, responsiveness in sending and improving data, and his vision for how greater transparency can improve county assessment processes.”
Chris Stavros, Salt Lake County Assessor, shared, “The public needs a tool like this, bringing transparency to the property valuation process and highlighting the critical work done by assessors across the State of Utah.”
State Auditor John Dougall continued, “Unfortunately, some assessors do not welcome greater access to public assessment data. I’m concerned with those county officials who create barriers, making it difficult or costly for taxpayers to access, analyze, and use public information. Over the past couple of years, Wasatch and Summit County property owners expressed concerns with inequitable assessment in their counties. Yet their assessors failed to provide public information for this tool. Every Utahn should be troubled by those who struggle to effectively perform their constitutional duty and shun public engagement and oversight.”
The Office compiled property assessment data from county assessors and integrated it into this unified property valuation tool. The underlying data comes directly from county assessors. We added standardized property types and tax exemption classifications to improve searchability but included original parcel description information.
The Property Values Tool can be viewed at PropertyValues.utah.gov or on Transparent Utah at transparent.utah.gov.
