A local property owner is raising concerns about a little-publicized change to the way property value assessment complaints are handled.

Jorgen Ruppert says that Bill 23, passed by the Alberta government earlier this spring, has fundamentally altered the property assessment complaint system by eliminating a second level of appeal — and that this could spell trouble for Calgary’s residential taxpayers.

The government says the changes were made to “streamline” the system. However, Ruppert argues the changes were done behind closed doors with little or no public consultation and could open the process up to “arrogance and possible abuse.”

Before this bill, homeowners who believed that the market value assessed for their property — the base upon which municipal taxes are calculated — was incorrect could file a complaint with their municipal assessment review board (ARB). If they were dissatisfied with the ARB’s ruling, they could then appeal the decision to a higher authority: the province’s Municipal Government Board (MGB). But under the new rules set to take effect in 2010, the MGB will no longer independently hear property assessment appeals from the public.

According to Ruppert, this essentially gives municipalities carte-blanche control over the process. The problem with this is that since ARB staff is employed by municipalities, Ruppert believes that they have a vested interest in maintaining the city’s tax base and can’t be trusted to be impartial.

“They state that they are arm’s length and that they are unbiased, but I find this difficult to believe most times,” says Ruppert, who owns several rental properties in Inglewood. In his experience, ARB decisions tend to favour the city’s initial assessments. Ruppert has appealed ARB decisions on multiple occasions and says that “at the very least” the MGB has agreed with his position 50 per cent of the time.

However, the government says that the changes to the complaint system were necessary and overdue. In a letter responding to Ruppert’s complaints, Municipal Affairs Minister Ray Danyluk states that the current system is “cumbersome, time consuming and is inefficient.”

Jerry Ward, communications’ head of municipal affairs, adds that moving from a two-tier to a one-tier system will save taxpayers money, pointing out that in some instances it would take more than a year for a complaint to be fully heard.

Ward also stated that each local ARB will have a provincially appointed member whose function is to provide provincial oversight on issues of “independence, fairness and impartiality.” This, along with positive changes to the system such as mandatory training of all assessment review board clerks and board members and improved access to comparative property information, are designed to maintain public confidence in the complaint system.

However, Ruppert believes these are just smoke-and-mirrors changes, masking the government’s real intent: to save money at the expense of fairness to taxpayers.

“There was never any problem getting the information,” says Ruppert, pointing to stacks of comparative property information he has collected to support his past cases. Generally, the supporting documents for an assessor’s property valuation are available by request during a 30- day open house period after assessment notices are issued.

On the province’s position of additional training, Ruppert wonders whether the government is suggesting that ARB members had lacked proper training. And he remains skeptical that having a lone provincial appointee on a three-man board paid for by the municipality will be enough to prevent bias decisions.

Ruppert also shrugs at the government’s assertion that “significant consultation” with stakeholders was performed. These included information sessions held in Edmonton and Calgary and an online survey. “I don’t know too many people who would bring up the municipal affairs website to find out this had happened,” Ruppert says.

Given the far-reaching impact of the decision — basically affecting all residential property owners in the province — Ruppert thinks the government should have done more to raise public awareness regarding the proposed changes through newspaper and TV advertisements, so that the opinions of average citizens could be heard and perhaps considered.

“There’s a lack of transparency when this doesn’t happen.”

At the end of the day, Ruppert says he’s now saving extra money to pay next year’s taxes because he believes these changes will result in him, and any Albertan who believes they have had an unfair property value assessment, being forced to pay more taxes.