City of Ironwood v. Gogebic County Bd. of Com'rs, Docket No. 77-814

• Decision Date: 05 July 1978
• Docket Number: Docket No. 77-814
• Parties: CITY OF IRONWOOD, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GOGEBIC COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, Defendant-Appellee, and Township of Ironwood, Township of Blessemer, Township of Marenisco, Township of Watersmeet, Township of Wakefield and Township of Erwin, Intervening Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: Court of Appeal of Michigan — District of US

Page 642

269 N.W.2d 642

84 Mich.App. 464

CITY OF IRONWOOD, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. GOGEBIC COUNTY BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS, Defendant-Appellee and Township of Ironwood, Township of Blessemer, Township of Marenisco, Township of Watersmeet, Township of Wakefield and Township of Erwin Intervening Defendants-Appellants.

Docket No. 77-814.

Court of Appeals of Michigan.

July 5, 1978.

Released for Publication Sept. 18, 1978.

Weis, Cossi & Slade by Lawrence F. Weis, Ironwood, for intervening defendants-appellants.

Santini, Jacobs, McDonald & Silc by David E. McDonald, Ironwood, for City of Ironwood.

Anders B. Tingstad, Jr., Bessemer, for Gogebic.

Before V. J. BRENNAN, P. J., and R. B. BURNS and KELLY, JJ.

V. J. BRENNAN, Presiding Judge.

Intervening defendants Gogebic County Township units appeal from the Michigan State Tax Tribunal judgment rejecting the Gogebic County Board of Commissioners proposed figure for equalization of real property in the City of Ironwood. The Tribunal's judgment resulted from their determination that the County Commissioners arbitrarily ignored the reassessment of real property values made by the City of Ironwood Board of Review. The Tribunal thus adjusted the assessed value figure for City of Ironwood real property downward to conform to the Review Board figure and distributed the resulting amount of overvaluation in the County Board's assessment to all units located within the county. Appeal from the Tax Tribunal is a matter of right. M.C.L. § 205.753(1); M.S.A. § 7.650(53)(1).

In early 1960, Gogebic County was reappraised by private appraisers and its valuation figures accepted by the City of Ironwood. In 1968, the County established its Tax Department and the reappraisal of the entire county was commenced, with the City of Ironwood the last political subdivision so appraised. The reappraisal of property in the City of Ironwood commenced in 1973 and was not completed until late February, 1976. This appraisal was used by the city assessor in establishing the assessment roll.

The assessment roll was completed by the first Monday in March, as required by M.C.L. § 211.24; M.S.A. § 7.24, and the Board of Review for the City of Ironwood met that same day, in accordance with M.C.L. § 211.29; M.S.A. § 7.29. Apparently, the Board of Review was flooded with assessment reviews. The Board received assessment appeals from 1,022 persons making personal appearances. Additional appeals from 61 persons were received by mail. As a result of this large number of appeals, the Board of Review was unable to complete its work by April 5, 1976, as required by M.C.L. § 211.30a; M.S.A. § 7.30(1).

During its consideration of these appeals, the Board of Review at one time attempted to set aside the entire assessment roll and rely upon the roll used in 1975 with adjustments made for 1976. However, the State Tax Commission ordered the Board of Review to consider the 1976 roll and extended the Board completion date to April 16, 1976. The Board of Review ultimately completed its task on May 18, 1976. Part of this delay was due to a suit filed by aggrieved taxpayers challenging the 1976 assessment roll. The Board ultimately reduced assessed valuation on 577 properties of the 1,083 cases under consideration. Some additional reductions were made for properties belonging to persons who had never appealed their assessed valuation. The Board's final assessed value for the real property in the City of Ironwood was $24,483,300, being a reduction of $1,225,200 from the city assessor's figure of $25,708,500.

On May 3, 1976, prior to the completion of the Board of Review's task, the County Board of Commissioners met, as required by M.C.L. § 211.34; M.S.A. § 7.52, to examine the various assessment rolls for purposes of equalization. Since the Board of Review for the City of Ironwood had not completed its task, the County Equalization Department sent an estimated County equalized valuation from the City of Ironwood to the State Tax Commission. The estimate of real property in the City of Ironwood was $24,900,508. The County Board of Commissioners rejected this figure.

On May 5, 1975, the County Equalization Department revised its estimate for real property in the City of Ironwood to $25,656,700 and sent this figure to the State Tax Commission. On May 19, 1976, this figure was also rejected by the Board of Commissioners. However, on June 16, 1976, this estimate was resubmitted and accepted by the Board of Commissioners, even though substantially higher than the figure submitted by the City of Ironwood Board of Review.

On June 18, 1976, the City of Ironwood filed an application with the State Tax Tribunal, alleging that the figure adopted for the equalized value of all property in the City of Ironwood was too high. Although both real and personal property values were involved at that stage of the proceedings, the question of personal property valuation is no longer involved in this appeal. A preliminary hearing was held on August 6, 1976, and a full hearing was subsequently ordered. On January 7, 1977, intervening defendants filed a motion to intervene which was subsequently granted.

The State Tax Tribunal heard the case on January 10-14, 1977, and issued its decision on February 25, 1977. In its opinion, the court held that the Board of Commissioners arbitrarily rejected the adjustments made by the City of Ironwood Board of Review. In granting relief, the Tribunal accepted the Board of Review's figure of $24,483,300 for the value of the real property in the City of Ironwood. The difference between that figure and the figure sent by the County Board of Commissioners was then allocated equally to all the governmental units in the county on grounds that the Tribunal could not change the total state equalized value of the county because of changes made in the valuation of individual units. See M.C.L. § 211.34(3); M.S.A. § 7.52(3).

Intervening defendant-Townships bring two principal allegations of error on this appeal. We will address each one respectively.

Intervening defendants claim that the Tax Tribunal erred as a matter of law by ruling that the County Board of Commissioners, while determining county equalized value, had arbitrarily and improperly rejected the adjustments in assessment made by the City of Ironwood Board of Review.

On appeal, we are bound by the factual determinations of the State Tax Tribunal. M.C.L. § 205.735; M.S.A. § 7.650(35); Const.1963, art. 6, § 28. See also Ann Arbor v. University Cellar, 65 Mich.App. 512, 516, 237 N.W.2d 535 (1975), Rev'd on other grounds 401 Mich. 279, 258 N.W.2d 1 (1977). In its opinion, the Tax Tribunal noted that the final report ultimately adopted by the Board of Commissioners made no effort to take into account adjustments by the Board of Review of the City of Ironwood, "but merely in one stroke rejected all but minimal reductions made by the Board of Review". What we must determine as a matter of law is whether such a rejection was permissible under existing authority.

Clearly, the Board of Review has the power to review assessments of individual parcels of property. City of Negaunee v. State Tax Commission,337 Mich. 169, 176, 59 N.W.2d 136 (1953). This power is authorized by M.C.L. § 211.29; M.S.A. § 7.29. ¹ Nothing in the statutes indicates that adjustments to assessments must be done in accordance with any set formula so long as they are not done arbitrarily. National Bank of Detroit v. Detroit,272 Mich. 610, 615, 262 N.W. 422 (1935). The objective in any of these adjustments is to assess property at 50 percent of its true cash value. M.C.L. § 211.27; M.S.A. § 7.27.

Upon review of the record, we find the Tax Tribunal determined that the Board of Review made a great effort to secure adequate data for the adjustments but that the large number of appeals prevented completion of its work on time. Although some of the delay was due to the Review Board's attempt to reject the entire tax roll, the Tribunal also found that delay was occasioned in part by the county's two rejections of the proposed Equalization Committee report. Contrary to defendants' argument, we would also note that M.C.L. § 211.30; M.S.A. § 7.30 grants the Board of Review the power to change assessments on its own motion. Consequently, the Tribunal's determination that the Review Board changed three or four assessments on its own motion portends no procedural error on this appeal. Our opinion is that the Review Board properly exercised its statutory function.

M.C.L. § 211.34a; M.S.A. § 7.52(1) provides for county equalization of the assessments submitted by each of its governmental units. ² The Tax Tribunal found that the Board of Commissioners arbitrarily rejected the Board of Review's reductions in the assessed value for the City of Ironwood. We find support for this conclusion in the fact that though not reaching an actual final decision until June 16, 1976, the Board of...