For Nebraska citizens unhappy with the new number determined in their property tax valuations last month, July is when county review boards across the state begin to respond to protests to those appraisals. But what is that property tax protest process like? Jefferson County provides an inside look.

Any of the 7,000-plus citizens of Jefferson County that are in disagreement with the new property tax valuations they received last month can submit a protest to the office of the county assessor, which will review that complaint and then, this month, bring it across the hall of the county courthouse to be evaluated by the county commissioners, who comprise the County Board of Equalization.  

And that final word – equalization – is the clue towards the group’s ultimate objective: ensuring that the determined values of properties in this county remain in line with those determined values in all other similar counties across the state.  

“We serve our citizens. [The assessor] has a function, the board has our function, [the county clerk] has her function... but if our citizens do not agree with, in this case, the valuation of these properties, then we have a process by which they can go back and ask us to look at this again,” board chairman Mark Schoenrock said. 

For property owners that see their valuation change wildly from one year to the next, it might feel like they are being unfairly targeted even when they didn’t change anything to their homes or land. But the board underscored that valuation determinations are not predicated upon changes to individual properties – they're determined by examining widespread trends in similar properties across the county and across the state.  

Further, valuation is not the same as tax rate: property owners won’t know how much they’ll pay in taxes on said property until county boards review and establish levies later this year. 

“We don’t set taxes, we set valuations,” county assessor Mary Banahan said. “We’re not wanting to raise taxes, it’s all determined by a formula.” 

Jefferson County reported 94 total protests this year – only about a third of the number received in 2024 – most of which requested the assessor and the board reduce the initial determination, though there are the occasional cases where the property owner feels that number should go up.  

“We get one of those once every few years,” longtime county commissioner Michael Dux said.  

Some of these hearings are hashed out in person or over the phone with the county board. Other times, the assessor will review the claim and settle with the property owners before it gets that far. Either way, whenever there’s a protest in the summer, the assessor’s office springs into action. Banahan maintains an online database where she reviews comparable properties across the county and across the state – properties of similar acreage, building makeup, even down to the soil type.  

They examine valid sales of property made between October 2021 through September 2024 to set a financial benchmark for comparison. Jefferson County is subdivided into three market areas or precincts, setting a physical and geographical benchmark for comparison.  

“We determine what the average sale price is, and then we break that down even further to soil type so that we can be as fair and as equal as we can possibly be,” Banahan explained. “State statute says we are required to use that sales period, we’re required to come up with what we believe to be a value per acre per soil type.” 

Then, the board must determine what category each particular property falls into – agricultural, commercial and residential are the most common – oversee a review checklist, and then select one of a couple of action items that summarizes their decision about every property: in short, should the determined valuation be raised, lowered, or left unchanged? 

“We send those numbers to the Department of Revenue, they look over everything to make sure we are in statutory compliance, and within 69 to 75 percent of market value of the properties,” Banahan said. “Even then, after they look at it and determine whether our numbers are correct or not, they send that off to the Tax Equalization and Review Commission, which looks at the numbers of all the 93 counties, to equalize our numbers with all the counties in the state.” 

And if the protesting citizens still do not agree with the board’s determination, there is one more step of the process they can tap into: they can appeal to the state’s Tax Equalization and Review Commission, an independent body in Lincoln that will issue the final say on what the final valuation will be. Of the 271 protests heard in Jefferson County last year, 7 advanced to TERC for final appeal – some of those results are still pending.  

“There is a process established which helps to protect the citizens’ rights. And we go through this every year to make sure that we are in fact achieving the mission, what Mary is charged with, which is the equalization of all the property values in the county,” Schoenrock said. “It’s a very good process, it serves our citizens, their rights, and their abilities to make sure we as their elected servants are going through to ensure we get the right outcome.” 

The Jefferson County board will host two full days of protest hearings next week, and locals can expect to see the results in their mailboxes this time next month. For 2026, all protests must be filed to the county assessor’s office in June so they can be reviewed and evaluated by the county board in July when they undertake this process all over again next summer.