If you’ve ever wondered just what the Clallam County Assessor’s Office assesses, how it assesses, or what the assessments buy, Linda Owings-Rosenburgh has a booklet for you.
The “2004 Annual Report, Clallam County Assessor” is full of graphs, tables, pie charts, lists, frequently asked questions and explanations in lay language of what Assessor Owings-Rosenburgh does and how she does it.
There are some fascinating bits of trivia: for instance, that the 2004 levy rate per $1,000 of assessed valuation — $10.83 — was the lowest since 1987.
The highest was $13.30 in 1988.
In the meantime, the value of real and personal property in Clallam County had increased almost threefold, from more than $1.7 billion in 1986 to more than $4.6 billion in 2003.
The Assessor’s Office maintains more than 48,000 appraisal reports, plus maps that show every piece of real property in the county. It maintains data on sales of property.
In Washington, property is assessed at 100 percent of its market worth. The assessor, says Owings-Rosenburgh, uses three ways to determine that value:
* Comparing sales of similar property.
* Estimating how much it would cost to replace the property.
* Capitalizing the annual net operating income the property probably will produce for the rest of its economic life.
