Ranchers suing Assessor; challenge new land values

Ranchers who own a combined 430,000 acres in Yavapai County have filed an Arizona Tax Court suit against Yavapai County Assessor Pam Pearsall, accusing her of illegally jacking up the value of their grazing land. It's the largest number of acres involved in any property tax lawsuit he's ever seen, said the ranchers' attorney Paul Mooney of Mesa. The list of about three dozen plaintiffs reads like a who's who of Yavapai County ranching families, including Fain, Groseta, Hays, Maughn, Kieckhefer, James, Teskey, McCraine and Denton. Ranches include Yavapai, Orme and Inscription Canyon. The lawsuit says the plaintiffs own or lease 2.5 million acres of public and private ag land in Yavapai County, or nearly half of all the acreage in the county. The Assessor's Office in February raised the full cash value of grazing land from $7.56 per acre in the 2011 taxable year to $25 per acre in 2012. State law requires assessors to base grazing land value on actual income. The quadrupled value would increase the combined value of the 429,310 acres of grazing land from $3.2 million to $10.7 million...more