Representatives of Porter Regional Hospital accused Porter County Assessor Jon Snyder of going outside state guidelines when hiring an independent appraiser to assess the new hospital and outpatient building at Ind. 49 and U.S. 6.
"We don't know what his methodology was," said Donald Feicht Jr., vice president of taxes at Uzelac & Associates.
The hospital representatives appeared Tuesday morning before the Porter County Property Tax Assessment Board of Appeals to challenge the $244.5 million assessment, arguing the figure should be $39.3 million.
The lower figure was arrived at using an assessor manual and guidelines provided by the state, Feicht said. He cited other examples of hospitals assessed at lower values and accused Snyder of being the only assessor in the state to go outside the guidelines in this type of work.
Snyder provided the PTABOA members with a copy of the privately-done appraisal, saying it used approaches involving cost, sales comparisons and income. Each approach came to a value that is far closer than 1 percent of one another, he said.
Feicht questioned why the independent appraisal was labeled confidential and kept out of the hands of the public and himself.
"We are the hospital," he said.
Snyder said the confidential status was ordered by the court that forced the hospital to release information said to be needed for the assessment.
The PTABOA members took the appeal under consideration.
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