BOA Appeals BOE Rulings to Jasper Superior Court

The Jasper County Board of Assessors (BOA) is appealing four Board of Equalization (BOE) appeal cases to Jasper Superior Court for review.

The decision to take three conservation use (CU) applicants, all of which reside in Cedar Creek Subdivision, and Providence Baptist Church to Superior Court came Monday morning following an executive session consultation with county attorney Kevin Brown during a called meeting.

Conservation use tax exemptions for Charles and Pam Burnett, Conway Thomas, and Tim and Marlo Slaughter, all of Cedar Creek were initially denied by the BOA. Each applicant appealed to the BOA with attorney Dan Roberts representing them during those hearings and were again denied CU.
Each applicant appealed their case to the BOE during last month’s appeal hearings which resulted in a reversal of each applicant’s BOA denials.

Aside from reviewing those three CU applications, assessors also decided to appeal the exempt status granted to Providence Baptist Church on 180 acres in Shady Dale.
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Like the previous three applicants, the church congregation had applied and been denied tax exempt status by the BOA twice before appealing to the BOE which reversed the denial.

The BOA has the right to challenge any decisions made by the BOE during appeal hearings just as long as they are addressed to the Superior Court within 30 days of the hearing.

In addition to reviewing appeal cases with Mr. Brown, assessors voted to revise the current CU policy (adopted May 2, 2006), according to chief appraiser Lynn Bentley.

The revision included the addition of the following sentence to Section 2 of the policy pertaining to bona fide agricultural use:
Any restrictions or covenants applied to a property which restricts its use primarily to residential character or any similar wording, will not qualify as being used for primarily agricultural.