Time to pony up

KELLOGG –– After more than four years, the legal journey to determine Silver Mountain Resort’s value has nearly come to an end.

The Shoshone Board of County Commissioners unanimously approved a motion to finalize the repaying of over a quarter-million tax dollars to the resort following agreement made between the two entities. This payment was authorized due to an overpayment in taxes from the resort through the course of the property evaluation court battle that began in 2017.

The BOCC along with Shoshone County Clerk Tamie Lewis-Eberhard, discussed the matter prior to the motion, which included listing off the specific taxing entities that owed Silver Mountain refunds, including the Cities of Kellogg and Wardner, the West Shoshone Hospital District, Shoshone County Fire District No. 2, Kellogg Joint School District 391, and Shoshone County itself.

Of the listed entities, only Shoshone County and KSD 391 still had remaining balances left to pay, with $98,183.80 from the county, and $128,020.44 from the school district.

This includes money from KSD’s supplemental levies and from their existing bonds.

The levied monies cover the holes left after the State funding is received, which is roughly 28% of the Kellogg School District’s annual budget.

That total $226,204.24 will be covered by the county from funds that they already have currently, but then in the coming year those funds will be recuperated by the county and the school district through levies, according to Eberhard.

These monies represent the 2018 and 2019 tax years, with a total reimbursement from all of the entities coming in at $396,225.26.

“Let’s just pay it and get it over with,” said Commissioner Jay Huber. “If we’ve got it, let’s just take care of it.”

The reimbursement money will come from the regular annual levies for both the county and the school district. Ironically, Silver Mountain will be paying into these levies to cover the cost of their repayment.

The whole legal battle first began in July 2017 when Silver Mountain owner Tryg Fortun appealed the county assessor’s appraised value of his then newly acquired property — essentially asking the county to lower the value of the property.

The Shoshone County Board of Equalization heard Fortun and his lawyer state their case in February 2018, but ultimately decided to uphold their assessed appraised value.

Fortun, who purchased Silver Mountain Resort in October 2016 from longtime owners, Jeld-Wen Holdings Inc., argued that the value of Silver Mountain should be based on the $5 million price that he paid to acquire the property. Contrary to this sale price though, the Shoshone County assessor assessed Silver Mountain Resort (and its associated properties) to be worth approximately $22 million.

These two very different figures set two very different tax rates for the resort to pay.

While Jeld-Wen owned the property, the company paid taxes on the county appraised value of approximately $22 million and never appealed the decision.

After the Shoshone County Board of Equalization’s decision to uphold Assessor Jerry White’s valuation, Fortun appealed to the state to make their own determination.

On May 1, 2018, the Idaho Board of Tax Appeals concluded that the disputed resort properties in total were worth $6,310,000 — far south of the county’s number.

Within 10-days of the state’s announcement, county representatives decided to appeal the $6,310,000 valuation and take the dispute to the courtroom.

Following months of litigation and delays due to the COVID-19 pandemic, an agreement was reached between the two sides that the combined properties were worth approximately $9.2 million on average from 2018 to 2020.

Because Silver Mountain continued to pay taxes based on the $22 million figure throughout the legal battle though, they are now owed a refund from the entities that benefited from those tax funds.

As far as how the repayment will affect the various entities, Kellogg Mayor Mac Pooler explained that after all the lawyers and courtrooms, they simply had no choice but to bite the bullet.

“Since we have gotten involved in this, we have set aside money in our budgets just in case we lost,” he said. “The County is taking the lead on that, but of course it affects us.”

Silver Mountain Resort general manager declined to comment on whether or not the resort would consider donating the funds back to the entities or how they felt about the impact the repayment may have, but is happy that mostly everything with the saga is over.

“Silver appreciates being able to resolve the 2018-2020 tax issues with the County and looks forward to making improvements to continue serving the community,” he said.

The 2017 tax evaluations are still pending and, depending on their outcome, will possibly require another smaller refund to the resort.