Alvin Woody says he paid an extra $48,000 in property taxes at his property at 1208 Beale Lane in Central Point. 

Central Point resident Alvin Woody grew alarmed in 2019 at how high his property taxes had soared.

After Jackson County Assessor David Arrasmith acknowledged an error had been made, Woody calculated that because of the mistake, he’d paid $47,950.07 in unnecessary taxes since 2006.

Fixing the error reduced Woody’s $13,756.54 tax bill in 2018 to $10,133.74 in 2019 on a 2-acre commercial property at 1208 Beale Lane, which he bought in 2005.

But Woody said Arrasmith told him he didn’t have the authority to reimburse the money Woody had overpaid due to the assessor’s error.

For more than three years, Woody, who is retired, has been through the wringer, pressing for relief for the taxes he wasn’t supposed to be paying since 2006. He took his case to the Oregon Tax Court, dealt with a number of state agencies and sought help from the Jackson County Board of Commissioners.

“It was just appalling the way it was all handled,” Woody said. “The typical answer is: ‘It isn’t my job.’”

Woody said he never received a response from the county commissioners.

After going round after round with different agencies, Woody sent a letter to legislators in Salem this year, and Rep. Pam Marsh, D-Ashland, responded.

The Oregon House passed House Bill 2086 this week that would require assessors to reimburse taxpayers for the current tax year and for up to five previous years if an error was found. The bill, which still must clear the Senate and be signed by Gov. Tina Kotek, wouldn’t apply retroactively however.

Marsh said that when she received information from Woody, “I was really taken aback by his story.”

After she was unable to leverage some sort of direct solution to the problem, Marsh said she helped guide the bill through the House Revenue Committee to change ambiguous language in the current law that an assessor “may” correct an error to “shall” correct an error.

According to her understanding of existing state law, she said, an assessor should currently have the discretion to correct the problem for five years prior.

“I don’t know why he (Arrasmith) refused to go back five years,” she said.

Under existing Oregon Revised Statute 311.205, “The officer may correct the roll for any year or years not exceeding five years prior to the last certified roll.”

However, there are inconsistencies in state statutes that Woody faced in his legal battles, inconsistencies that House Bill 2086 tries to resolve.

Marsh said it was more difficult to incorporate language into the bill that would alert taxpayers if an “exception” was made to a property tax statement, such as a remodel or zone change, which would have a significant affect on the valuation.

In Woody’s case, a staff county appraiser, who no longer works for the department, noted a remodel on a building that appears to have given rise to the error back in 2006.

The House sought feedback from the Oregon State Association of County Assessors to help draft the bill, which Marsh hopes will become law by the end of the session.

“It passed unanimously on the House floor,” she said. “I think the Senate will love this bill.”

While Marsh said she is not sure if Woody’s story is unique, she said, “It’s not acceptable for it to happen to anybody.”

Arrasmith said state statutes and the Oregon Constitution were analyzed by the tax court and Department of Revenue, leading to a ruling that Woody isn’t entitled to financial relief, even though Arrasmith said he’d hoped a way could be found to help Woody, who represented himself in tax court without an attorney. “I wouldn’t be against it,” he said.

But the assessor said his hands are tied because of state statutes and the Oregon Constitution.

“This office is mandated to follow property tax laws, and sometimes these laws appear not to be fair in every situation,” Arrasmith said. “I am in favor of any change in the property tax laws that has common sense, and that increases fairness.”

Under state law, the assessor has a limited number of ways to deal with assessment-related problems.

He said the Oregon Tax Court also sided with the state Department of Revenue, represented by an attorney with the state Attorney General’s Office, and ultimately decided that the error could only be corrected in the 2019 tax year, not any of the preceding years.

Arrasmith said Woody’s situation isn’t very common, and he hadn’t yet looked at House Bill 2086 to see if it would adequately address the issues in Woody’s situation. He said the language in the bill might ultimately be challenged in the courts.

Local property tax appeals are also not that common, numbering about 30 this year.

“That’s a very low number,” Arrasmith said.

By contrast, the county received 2,200 appeals in 1997 after the landmark property tax reform Measure 50 was approved by voters, a law that added more complexity into the calculation of taxes.

Arrasmith has taken heat from county commissioners in the last year after a state audit found widespread problems in his office. The audit found the assessor’s basic function to compute taxes wasn’t in compliance with the law.

In 2021, Arrasmith missed an error that caused Almeda Fire survivors to underpay their property taxes by $466,000. County workers recalculated thousands of tax bills and informed survivors — many of whom were struggling to recover — that they owed more money.

Arrasmith said the state audit also found his department was understaffed by 13 people. Instead of the current 33.5 full-time equivalent employees, he should have 46. Arrasmith said his budget has increased so he can hire three more full-time employees.

Woody said he figures he may never get compensated for his overpayment of taxes from 2006 to 2013 because of the statute of limitations, but he’s still holding out hope that he can get compensated from 2013 to 2019, which amounts to $20,298.35.

When he bought the property in 2005, he figured property taxes would increase the next year, so he wasn’t particularly alarmed by the property tax statement in 2006 showing a more than $3,000 increase. What he didn’t pay much attention to was a reference to an “exception” on the property tax statement.

The “exception” referred to improvements on the property. Those improvements were never made on the property, he said.

“Like most people, I never looked into how Oregon taxes property,” Woody said.

He said he hopes his plight serves as a cautionary tale to other taxpayers.

In testimony to the House, Woody said he has been denied the right to be taxed correctly by the Oregon Department of Revenue, the Oregon Department of Justice and the Jackson County assessor.

The “current statute supports the assessor’s abuse of authority,” he stated. “I also believe that the DOR, the DOJ and the assessor have all violated their mission statements, and as such have also violated the oath of office that each of the representatives have sworn to.”