The Guthrie County Board of Review may be heading to court. Recent filings cite a failure to comply with a request from the Iowa Department of Revenue to hire independent appraisers to investigate after a decrease in the value of Guthrie County Assessor, Nikki Carrick’s home. A complaint by a neighbor brought the discrepancy to Kraig Paulsen, Director of the Department of Revenue. The neighbor claimed that even though they lived in similar houses, a classification change from residential to agriculture dropped the Carrick’s payment to $67.37 a square foot compared to their $94.06. The department made the request for the appraisals in late May, giving the county until the end of July to comply. When this did not happen by the July 31 deadline, the state asked the district court to step in. In a statement to Des Moines television station KCCI, Carrick said she did not want to set the value or classification of her home when she became the new assessor in 2016. “I protested to the Guthrie County Board of Review in 2017 asking them to determine the classification and value, feeling that was the most appropriate avenue to set the value and classification. I wanted to take myself completely out of the equation,” Carrick said.
