Maple Grove Changing The Way City Assesses Home Values
Maple Grove will change the way the city conducts home valuation assessments in 2026, instead following many other cities in allowing Hennepin County to perform the work and interact with residents. The county is offering assessing services to cities at county cost, meaning the city no longer will employ its own assessments staff.
Maple Grove will change the way the city conducts home valuation assessments in 2026, opting to allow Hennepin County to provide the service instead.
“There’s a number of larger cities that were being assessed by the county–Plymouth being a neighbor,” said Maple Grove City Administrator Heidi Nelson. “We really talked with them about how that went with them, were there any impacts.”
Nelson said many of the city’s assessing staff have already left for other opportunities, knowing a change was coming. She said the remaining four assessing employees will transfer into compatible county roles by June.
“We felt like the service level really wasn’t going to be compromised,” said Nelson. “It was something that the county was equipped to handle and do pretty well.”
Nelson said the money in the city’s levy that had been budgeted for the assessing division could instead be used for other costs, including the city’s street reconstruction program.
The other change related to this transition is that instead of hosting one or a series of board of appeals meetings for property tax payers once the assessments go out each spring, the city will instead host the county staff member(s) at the Government Center for a period of open-book meetings.
“They can come in and meet the staff at any time over about a month-long period and talk about their property valuation,” she said.
Nelson said a part-time technician will remain with the city and the county staff member assigned to oversee assessments in Maple Grove will be staffed at the Government Center several days a week eventually.
“It’s always difficult when you’re changing things that impact peoples’ lives and jobs and livelihoods, and you want to be very thoughtful about that,” said Nelson. “But I think how things have transition and worked out, I don’t think our residents will see much change with the service level.”
